Tag: california

  • California drafts pointless legislation

    Netting predators:

    Add California to the list of states who are drafting meaningless legislation concerning MySpace and sex offenders.

    The proposal calls for California to require registered sex offenders to report their e-mail addresses and Internet identities to the state, which would make them available to MySpace and other social networks to block participation.

    “It is not a divine right that someone who is a registered sex offender should have access to a chat room of 15-year-olds,” said Assemblyman Anthony Portantino, D-La Cañada Flintridge.

    Portantino and Republican Assemblywoman Shirley Horton of San Diego are pushing Assembly Bill 841 in conjunction with MySpace, a massive, virtual community that enables users to share profiles, photos and e-mail.

    Opponents of the bill are claiming everything from free speech infringement to additional punishment for sex offenders who have already served their term. Forgive me for being a cold bastard but I don’t really care about the rights of sex offenders. SOs have the highest recidivism rate among all criminals. However, like I’ve said before this legislation is meaningless of the SOs use fake e-mail addresses and still does nothing about SOs that haven’t been caught yet.

  • Accused teacher still posting on MySpace

    Teacher due in court still using MySpace site:

    A teacher from Rialto High School in San Bernadino, California is still using his MySpace to communicate with students even though he’s facing criminal charges. 31-year-old Matthew Cepican was found with a 16-year-old student from Rialto High in his car in what the article describes as a remote area. He’s been charged with suspicion of committing lewd or lascivious acts with a minor. Age of consent in California is 18.

    Meanwhile, Cepican has continued to post on MySpace.com, a popular online networking site, and former and current students have sent him messages of support.

    On March 3, an 18-year-old man from Rialto who said he didn’t care what was said about his teacher posted this message: “sup mr.C & you still the downest teacher i had & .”

    High school students said that Cepican was popular, laid back, young and hip and that they could use slang with him.

    In a blog dated March 20, Cepican wrote, “I miss you all more than I can say. You got me through the toughest years of my life and owe all my dreams and success to you.

    “My greatest reward ain’t some stupid recognition from my peers. My greatest reward is your love and respect. I will never forget you … .”

    Thank God he’s not the English teacher.

  • It’s not illegal if I don’t meet them in person

    Man Arrested For Nude Pics Of Girls On MySpace:

    Another creep arrested for MySpace misdeeds. The subject in question is one Kevin Dale Pierce from the City of Angels. The 33-year-old Pierce was arrested for convincing teenage girls to send him nude pictures of themselves. Several external hard drives were found when police searched his house. How many girls did he contact top have that many hard drives? Pierce claimed to be a 19-year-old art student from UCLA.

    The investigation started in January, when a Temecula resident reported that her 14-year-old daughter was swapping notes with someone who claimed to be a 19-year-old art student at UCLA, DeLuna said.

    The two started an online relationship last November and, after several weeks, established a bond of trust, according to the sergeant. The suspect persuaded the girl to send photos of herself in various stages of undress, purportedly for an art project, DeLuna said.

    The girl’s mother noticed her daughter’s computer screen and read messages from the suspect asking for additional pictures in varied poses, DeLuna said.

    The woman told a deputy that the e-mail she spotted was from someone who called himself “kev pie” and thanked the girl for pictures she had sent him, according to an affidavit for a search warrant.

    The e-mailer then requested that the girl send some more snapshots and wrote, “Is there any way you can also take the exact same angles, straight from behind and from the 45 degree side … but on the floor instead of standing? so I can draw the legs and the body bent in shape,” the affidavit states.

    The mother did not know what the e-mail referred to and asked her daughter about it.

    The girl later told investigators that she informed the person she was corresponding with that she was 14 years old. She told detectives that she and the suspect began chatting on “I Chat” after meeting on MySpace.com, according to the affidavit.

    Investigators tracked down Pierce’s ISP address, accessed his MySpace account and determined he was actually 33 and that he had been communicating with at least 10 other girls, persuading them to send nude photos of themselves, police allege.

    The best part is Pierce’s explanation.

    “He seemed pretty eager to try to clear his name,” DeLuna said, adding that Pierce told them he did not believe he was breaking the law as long as he did not meet the girls in person.

    I would love to have seen the cops’ faces when he told them that.

    I could not find a definitive MySpace for Pierce.

  • More underage prostitution on craigslist

    FBI investigates allegations of underage prostitution on Craigslist:

    More allegations of underage prostitution on everyone’s favorite website of scum and villainy, craigslist. Two girls out of Sacramento, California, ages 14 and 17, were found to have had ads on craigslist’s “erotic services” section.

    The affidavit describes the “erotic” ads as facilitating communication between prostitutes and clients, complete with code words calling the prostitutes “providers” and the clients “hobbyists.”

    The Sacramento site’s erotic offerings include many women posting images of their genitals and listing prices for half-hour and hour-long sessions. One ad depicts a pregnant woman, posts a phone number and offers to show callers that “pregnant women do it better.”

    The affidavit indicates that the underage girls allegedly photographed by Moore show the 14-year-old girl nude and touching herself suggestively. The 17-year-old’s ad offers various styles of sex and promises: “I will guarantee to fulfill all your naughty fantasies.”

    As usual, craigslist had a non-answer.

    The Sacramento case is the latest to focus legal scrutiny on Craigslist and prostitution ads on the highly popular Internet site. Craigslist has been linked in news accounts to prostitution stings from New York City suburbs to Chicago to Seattle. The company did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

    I wonder why? 🙄

  • ‘Tis the season to get robbed on craigslist

    ‘Tis the season to get robbed on craigslist

    CRAIGSLIST SHOPPER MACED AND ROBBED OF $2,000:

    Is anyone else besides me starting to notice a pattern here?

    Fremont police hope to take a pair of would-be entrepreneurs into custody for using the popular classifieds Web site Craigslist for a robbery ruse, police reported today.

    An unidentified victim answered an ad on the Web site for a 46-inch television on Wednesday. The sellers brought the television over to his house on Grimmer Blvd. and immediately set it up to prove that it worked, according to Fremont police.

    The victim told police he went straight to the bank to take out $2,000 to purchase the television. When he came back, however, the suspects attacked him with mace and took the money and the television.

    Yet, you never hear of any proposed legislation for the safety of craigslist users. I wonder why that is.

  • Brandon Bigsby: sex offender and parole violator

    Brandon Bigsby: sex offender and parole violator

    MySpace.com Used To Track Sex Offender:

    Registered sex offender Brandon Bigsby, 24, must have really been addicted to MySpace considering he broke basically all of his parole conditions to use it…

    On Thursday, officers were dispatched to Taft College, where they found Bigsby’s GPS tracking device. He was believed to have left an hour previously to the deputies’ arrival. Deputies tracked Bigsby to the Beale Library in downtown Bakersfield, where he accessed a MySpace forum. Officials arrived and found Bigsby, where he was arrested.

    Bigsby pleaded guilty to one count of a lewd and lascivious with a child under 14 years of age in May 2003, according to Superior Court records. He was sentenced to three years at Wasco State Prison and required to register as a sex offender. He is listed on the Megan’s Law Web site.

    If parole violations aren’t enough to keep predators off MySpace I don’t see how any legislation could either.

    I was unable to find a MySpace for Bigsby.

  • Oakland craigslist assault

    Oakland craigslist assault

    Police: Oakland Student Raped, Attacker Met Online:

    You know, while all the soccer moms and do-gooders are ranting and raving about MySpace, craigslist keeps sneaking in under the radar…

    (AP) OAKLAND An Alameda man is under arrest for allegedly raping a graduate student who answered a classified ad on a popular Web site.

    Police say a 31-year-old student at Mills College in Oakland was raped Thursday night after answering an ad on Craigslist offering modelling jobs.

    49-year-old Gregory Hayes was picked up by police Friday morning after the woman spotted him at a gas station near campus.

    Police say the woman sent her alleged attacker e-mails and talked to him on the phone before he arrived at her on-campus residence claiming he had a gun and raped her in his van.

    Hayes asked for a lawyer after his arrest and refused to talk to investigators. Police are investigating whether he met other women on Craigslist.

    At least MySpace is making attempts to keep their userbase safe. Craigslist doesn’t do anything.

  • Dyleski gets life

    Dyleski gets life

    Dyleski gets life in prison without parole:

    Scott Dyleski has been sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole in the murder of Pam Vitale.

    Some words from the sentencing judge…

    “The one time I saw you show any emotion is during autopsy photos,” Contra Costa Superior Court Judge Barbara Zuniga told the Dyleski as she sentenced the teenager.

    “I saw you, sir, lean forward and your mouth fell open. And that’s the position you remained in. You were absolutely fascinated by your handwork. You don’t deserve to live among decent people.”

    The pleas for leniency by Dyleski’s lawyer obviously fell on deaf ears, and took the brutal way Pam Vitale was killed into consideration rather than Dyleski’s youth and “troubled upbringing”.

    Personal responsibility wins a rare victory.

  • Dyleski lawyer asks for leniency

    Dyleski lawyer asks for leniency

    Defense asks for leniency for Dyleski:

    Citing his unstable childhood, the attorney for convicted murderer Scott Dyleski has asked a judge to consider handing down the lightest possible sentence for killing his neighbor, Pamela Vitale.

    Dyleski deserves a sentence of 25 years to life in prison, which would give him the opportunity for parole, deputy public defender Ellen Leonida wrote in her sentencing memo to Superior Court Judge Barbara Zuniga.

    “All he is asking for is an opportunity to demonstrate — many, many years from now — that he can change,” Leonida wrote.

    He showed no leniency on Pam Vitale, so the state of California should not show him any.

  • Child prostitution booming on craigslist

    Child prostitution booming on craigslist

    Online Child Prostitution, An Alarming Trend:

    This is an article from a Sacramento, CA news station about how child prostitution is proliferating due to the internet…

    (CBS 13) SACRAMENTO FBI agents say child prostitution is moving off the streets and onto the information superhighway. Sacramento Special Agent James Harris said sex peddlers have gotten tech savvy.

    “They figure if pedophiles can entice online, that’s their business, that’s what they do, said Harris.

    Harris says they set up profiles on MySpace or Yahoo to recruit and entice underage girls. Then they advertise them on the internet–through addresses like redbook.com, a bay area erotic services site, or legitimate places like Craigslist, where you can find a car, rent an apartment or an “erotic service.”

    “They’re advertised as of age when you look closer they’re not, said Harris.

    The face is usually cut out or covered in a way so the age is hard to tell and so that law enforcement can’t track them down. Agent Harris says most turn out to be reported missing and runaways.

    The only way to make money is to prostitute. A lot are beginning to see this is a safe way to do it than on the streets, said Harris.

    Hundreds pop up on Craigslist every day in Sacramento. Why the capital city? Harris says it’s a crossroads between Seattle, L.A., San Francisco and Reno, where I-5 and I-80 meets.

    Agent Harris admits these cases are tough to prosecute. Those who post the listings are hard to track down, in some cases out of the country. But the FBI says as their crime scenes shift, they’re investigating child sex for sale with more mouse than muscle.