TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Category: Social Media Crime

  • The overlegislation of MySpace continues

    The overlegislation of MySpace continues

    And while we’re plugging other blogs (because you know, we were) Pat from BelchSpeak has a great post about new proposed legislation that would make it illegal for sex offenders to use fraudulent e-mails to sign up for MySpace…

    The danger in this is that the Federal government suddenly gains the power to monitor the email activity of everyone in order to enforce a law against a small portion of the population. Otherwise this law banning the use of non-registered email addresses is unenforceable. Are liberals going to be outraged over the civil rights of sex offenders being violated?

    Thank you, Charles Schumer and John McCain. Is there nothing you two won’t try to legislate?

  • More on the MySpace database

    More on the MySpace database

    Can MySpace Protect Its People?:

    This is basically an article from Internet News about MySpace’s declaration of their sexual offender database and how they’re going to keep sex offenders off MySpace and how that’s not going to work…

    “We are committed to keeping sex offenders off MySpace,” Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace chief security officer, said in a statement. The database is a “significant step to keep our members as safe as possible.”

    MySpace said Sentinal Safe resulted from talks with North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal. But in a statement, Blumenthal called the new measure “ineffective without age and identity verification.

    “Convicted sexual offenders” can swiftly circumvent these protections by using fake names,” he said. The tobacco and alcohol industries already employ age and identity verification on the Internet, he added.

    Nigam said a gap will still remain in the ability to keep sex offenders off social-networking sites until legislation is passed forcing convicted offenders to use registered e-mail addresses.

    How can you force anyone to continually use the same e-mail address? That sounds like a waste of taxpayer money to me. Just because you can legislate something doesn’t make it feasible.

    The article also quotes some really smart people…

    “If predators really want to get around [the barrier] they can easily do it,” Ron Teixeira, executive director of the National Cyber Security Alliance, said. A blog titled MyCrimeSpace.com lists news items of adults meeting children on the social-networking site.

    Well, that’s not all I do here, but you get the point.

  • New Jersey calls out the usual suspects

    New Jersey calls out the usual suspects

    Keep kids’ photos off Web sites, state attorney general warns:

    The New Jersey State Attorney General thinks pictures are the problem…

    The playground isn’t the only place parents should watch over their children, state Attorney General Stuart Rabner says.

    Rabner said Web sites that let users put their picture online are unsafe and the owners of those sites should adopt a policy to make it easier for people to report harassment and crime online. He said he is mainly concerned with social networking sites, sites made up of picture profiles and descriptions of children and adult users who befriend each other and comment on each other’s pages.

    Rabner asked the chief financial officers of 10 social networking Web sites, such as Myspace, Xanga and Facebook, to consider installing a link that would appear on every page of their site, on which users could click if they felt bothered by another person.

    This link would alert not only site officials but also law enforcement officers in order to catch criminal activity, such as sexual harassment, he said.

    In a Nov. 16 letter to Web site owners, Raber expressed the need for such a policy.

    “The use of your service for illegal activity, and as a medium through which child predators identify, learn about and contact potential victims, poses a serious threat to the public safety of some of our most vulnerable citizens and creates significant risks for the positive reputation and continued operations of your business,” Rabner said.

    “I believe these goals can best be accomplished by making it easier for users to identify and report suspicious activity and illegal content, such as child pornography.”

    Yeah, that won’t cause a plethora of false alarms.

    I noticed that nowhere in his letter did Attorney General Rabner call for better parenting.

  • MySpace to block sex offenders

    MySpace to block sex offenders

    MySpace tool to help block sex offenders:

    MySpace, the popular online hangout that has drawn complaints about sexual predators and other dangers to teens, said Tuesday it will develop technologies to help block convicted sex offenders.

    MySpace is partnering with Sentinel Tech Holding to build a database containing names, physical descriptions and other identifiable details on sex offenders in the United States. The News Corp. site, however, stopped short of adopting Sentinel’s technology for verifying the ages and identities of its users.

    The database, to be called Sentinel Safe, “will allow us to aggregate all publicly available sex offender databases into a real-time searchable form, making it easy to cross-reference and remove known registered sex offenders from the MySpace community,” Hemanshu Nigam, MySpace’s chief security officer, said in a statement.

    This is a major leap forward in the right direction in my opinion. However, I hope the database doesn’t return any false positives. Not only that, but that still doesn’t do anything to prevent first time offenders.

  • Man forces teen to expose herself with threats of violence

    Man forces teen to expose herself with threats of violence

    Cops: Teen coerced to expose herself over Web:

    BINGHAMTON, N.Y. – A 25-year-old man faces federal charges after police said he threatened a young teenage girl and coerced her into using a Web camera to take explicit images that he later posted on the online social network Myspace.com.

    Shaun Brown was arrested and arraigned Monday in federal court on charges that he coerced a minor to engage in a sexual act and that he coerced a minor over the Internet.

    Brown met the 13-year-old girl, who lives in Ohio, in an online chat room for cheerleaders, according to court documents.

    Police said he pursued her with sexually explicit instant messages and threatened to harm her and her family if she didn’t expose herself via the Web cam.

    The girl complied and didn’t tell her parents until after she found the images on Myspace.com. Brown opened an account on the social networking site in the teenager’s name and posted an image of the girl exposing herself and included her name and address, according to court documents.

    What a sick son of a bitch.

    I was unable to find a MySpace for Brown.

    Thanks to Mandy for the tip.

  • Scott Shefelbine arrested again

    Scott Shefelbine arrested again

    Scott Shefelbine

    Sex-Assault Suspect Faces More Charges:

    “Alleged” child rapist Scott Shefelbine from Connecticut has been arrested again. You can read about all his exploits here.

    TOLLAND — Scott D. Shefelbine was arrested Wednesday night for allegedly preying on another teenage girl for sex.

    This time, the 31-year-old Tolland man was charged with restraining and attempting to rape a 15-year-old girl in the parking lot of Tolland High School. State police from Troop C served Shefelbine with a warrant Wednesday night charging him with criminal attempt at first-degree sexual assault, second-degree unlawful restraint, third-degree sexual assault and risk of injury to a minor. Police did not say when the incident took place.

    Shefelbine, of 167 Mountain Spring Road, was already facing multiple charges of sexually assaulting young teenage girls, some of whom he met on Myspace.com, a social networking website that is popular with teenagers. Prior to his arrest Wednesday, he was free on $1 million bail posted by his parents, who run a computer business from their home.

    He is now accused of assaulting at least seven girls. One of those, from West Hartford, told police that she had sexual contact with Shefelbine on numerous occasions, including at least once when she lived in Tolland before she turned 16.

    In court documents, the accused is described as portraying himself as age 17 or 19 to teenage girls and their parents. Police searching his home have recovered hair pieces that investigators say he used to hide his receding hairline and bald spot.

    According to this article, Shefelbine posted bond and was released. So now this scumbag is back out on the streets.

    What I find strange is that Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has repeatedly called for MySpace to make their site safer for children, yet the state can’t keep repeat offenders like Shefelbine and David Leonard off the streets.

  • David Leonard arrested again, and again, and again

    David Leonard arrested again, and again, and again

    Vernon man charged again with MySpace sex assault:

    David Leonard, our favorite Connecticut child molester, has been arrested AGAIN!!! You can check out just some of his earlier exploits here and here.

    NEW BRITAIN – A Vernon man was served with an arrest warrant Monday morning for another sexual-assault charge stemming from his use of the profile Web site MySpace.com

    The man, David Leonard, 22, was charged with second-degree sexual assault, risk of injury to a minor, employing a minor in an obscene gesture, promoting a minor in an obscene performance, and enticing a minor, according to the New Britain Herald.

    The incident took place in 2004 in New Britain, and involved a 14-year-old girl, New Britain police Sgt. Gregory Wright said.

    Leonard, a former Central Connecticut State University student, was first arrested on Jan. 30 on charges of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old Vernon girl he met through MySpace.

    Leonard was arrested a second time and accused of fondling a 12-year-old Newington girl and her friend of the same age in a wooded area.

    Leonard was arrested a third time on June 16, accused of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in New Britain, and was arrested for the fourth time in early August and charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl in Wethersfield.

    In October, a Superior Court judge signed a fifth arrest warrant against Leonard.

    After the last arrest in October, Assistant State’s Attorney Louis Luba told the Herald that police are expecting to arrest Leonard again on allegations of sexual assault against minors in Torrington and Vernon.

    Leonard also was arrested recently on a warrant out of Litchfield County, Luba told The Herald.

    Luba added that this would bring the total number of suspected cases to around 10.

    In addition to the sexual assault charges, Leonard has pending charges for carrying a weapon in a motor vehicle, failure to appear, and resisting arrest after police said he tried to run away from them when they came to his house in January.

    How many times does a child molester have to be arrested before they stop arresting him and just put him in jail?

  • Werribee victim may have had relationship with suspect

    Werribee DVD tryst twist:

    THE girl at the centre of the Werribee DVD sex assault investigation was allegedly in a continuing relationship with one of the teens.

    Copies of the DVD, which showed sexual acts and the girl’s hair being set alight, were sold at schools.

    Sources have told the Herald Sun at least one of the teens caught on the DVD continued a relationship with the victim for several months after the degrading film was made.

    Police are investigating whether rape charges can be laid against any of the teens involved.

    The relationship may become vital in investigations as to whether consent for sex was given during the filming of the DVD, titled C— the Movie, and the charges police can lay.

    And so what if she was? Does that make the assault any less wrong?

    However, I do like this part…

    It is possible some of the youths captured in the crude DVD may be charged as adults.

    At least one of the youths questioned by police has turned 18 since the offences took place in June.

    Most of those in the video are believed to be aged 16 and 17.

    Under Victorian law a person can be tried as an adult if they have turned 18 since the offence.

    I wish they would try this in the U.S.

  • Peter Kennedy

    Peter Kennedy

    MySpace sex case prompts Internet parental warning:

    SHELBY TOWNSHIP — Macomb County’s top cop warned parents Tuesday about the potential dangers their children face on the Internet after a 22-year-old man was charged with having sex with an underage girl he met on the popular MySpace.com Web site.

    His comments come a day after Peter Kennedy, 22, of West Bloomfield was charged with having sex with a 14-year-old girl in Shelby Township.

    Police are not disclosing the girl’s identity because of her age.

    “He apparently had contacted the girl days before through MySpace.com,” said Sgt. Stan Muscynski of the Shelby Township Police Department’s Detective Bureau.

    Kennedy was arraigned Monday before Magistrate Michael Osaer in the 41-A District Court in Shelby Township on a first-degree criminal sexual conduct charge. Kennedy faces up to life in prison for the charge.

    Osaer set bond at $250,000 bond. Kennedy remained in police custody Tuesday at the Macomb County Jail.

    Kennedy’s attorney, Bloomfield Hills-based Elias Muawad, said the girl voluntarily left her home and met with his client and is now claiming forced sexual conduct.

    “Force is the key thing here,” he said. “My client also believed the girl was 16 because of statements she made to him.”

    The girl may have also told Kennedy she was 16 in exchanges they had over the Internet, Muawad said.

    “I’m hoping she doesn’t ruin this young man’s life and tells the truth about (giving her consent),” he said.

    A preliminary exam for Kennedy is scheduled for Nov. 20 before District Judge Douglas Shepherd.

    Kennedy was arrested after a police officer on patrol found him engaged in sex with the girl in a car at about 3 a.m. Sunday, said Muscynski.

    The car was in a parking lot in the 24 Mile and Van Dyke area, he said.

    The old “she said she was 16” defense. You know, just because it may be legal for a 22-year-old to have sex with a 16-year-old doesn’t make it right.

    Anyway, I was unable to find a current MySpace for this loser.

  • Harry Denney

    Harry Denney

    Police say Bethel man met teen on MySpace:

    Yet even another MySpace creeper from Connecticut. Is it something in the water?

    BETHEL — The 46-year-old Bethel man charged with attempted sexual assault after police found him in a parked car with a 15-year-old girl last week met the teen on MySpace.com, police said.

    Bethel Police Chief Jeffrey Finch said Monday that Harry Denney, of Rockwell Drive, met the underage girl on the popular social networking Web site about a year ago.

    He wouldn’t say if Denney and the teen had contact prior to the meeting that resulted in Denney’s arrest in the high school parking lot Friday.

    Officers who were patrolling the lot during a football game between Bethel and New Milford found the pair in a “suspicious vehicle” parked in a rear corner of the lot. Finch wouldn’t say what attracted attention to the car.

    In addition to the sexual assault count, Denney was charged with risk of injury to a minor and loitering on school grounds. He was released on $10,000 bond for an appearance Nov. 14 in Danbury Superior Court.

    The age difference between them is almost my age.

    I was unable to find Denney’s MySpace. Hopefully, a tipster will provide.