TheTrenchcoat Chronicles

Tag: sex offender

  • Registered sex offender found drunk with kids in car

    “Police: Sex Offender Befriended Teens On MySpace”:

    It’s always disheartening when any kind of news article starts out like this…

    Late Friday night, Michael Ingram, a 39-year-old registered sex offender, was found riding around drunk, with five 12 and 13-year-old boys in his car.

    He was busted when one of his victims text messaged his brother to get help. It’s alleged that Ingram of the Nashville, Tenn. area, used MySpace to befriend one of the boys then through that one boy met the others.

    Ingram was previously convicted in the 1990 rape of a boy.

  • Facebook caves

    Facebook settles New York child safety probe:

    Not too long ago I posted about New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo setting his sights on Facebook because of pervs approaching his office’s fake underage Facebook profile.

    Well, Facebook has caved in to him…

    The settlement involves no financial penalties.

    Under the terms of the settlement, Facebook has agreed to begin addressing any complaint within 24 hours of being told of inappropriate content — involving such things as nudity, profanity or harassment — by a user or e-mail correspondent.

    The company will tell the complaining party the steps it has taken within 72 hours when the complaint has been submitted via an independent e-mail.

    In addition, the Palo Alto, California-based company has agreed to allow an independent examiner to oversee how Facebook handles such complaints. The attorney general will have a say in who gets hired as examiner. The examiner will report to the New York attorney general every six months over a two-year period on Facebook’s compliance.

    If I was Facebook I would have told them to shove it. The amount of crime that happens on Facebook compared to MySpace is almost negligible.

    Oh and look, our friend AG Roy Cooper from North Carolina has to sick his two cents in…

    “This agreement is another step toward protecting children on social networking sites but we still have a long way to go,” North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper said in a separate statement. “Our group of attorneys general will keep pushing MySpace, Facebook and other sites to do more.”

    Yet Cuomo and Cooper aren’t pushing parents to do more because as I’ve said parents vote and the AG’s don’t want to risk not being re-elected.

  • William Joe Mitchell arrested

    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.

  • Florida girl safe after running off with SO.

    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?

  • New York AG targets Facebook

    NY’s Cuomo subpoenas Facebook after company fails to respond:

    First, it was Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal. Then it was North Carolina’s Roy Cooper. Now add New York’s Andrew Cuomo to the list of state attorneys general who just don’t get it. (Is there any politician from New York that’s not named Cuomo?) Anyway, Mr. Cuomo has subpoenaed Facebook because Facebook did not respond to New York’s complaints that undercover investigators posing as teens were approached for sex.

    Investigators set up profiles as teens and say they were quickly contacted by other Facebook users with comments such as (quote) “u look too hot……. can i c u online,” and (quote) “call me if u want to do sex with me.”

    While entrapment accusations are thrown around willy nilly these days I still have to wonder what the fake undercover Facebook profiles looked like. Was just a class picture type photo or was it something more provocative?

    New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo says he is concerned that Facebook’s promise of a safe Web site for children is not consistent with its performance.

    As someone who chronicles crimes related to social networking sites let me give you my opinion on something. This site used to be called MyCrimeSpace for a reason. It’s because most of the crimes happening on social networking sites occur on MySpace. Very few of those crimes actually happen on Facebook.

    This sounds like Mr. Cuomo is trying to get a lot a press for doing nothing at all.

  • MySpace sex offender facing child porn charges

    Sex offender faces child porn charges:

    Carl Courtright of Granite City, Illinois was one of those registered sex offenders that had a profile on MySpace when he shouldn’t have. Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan used that to obtain a search warrant to Courtright’s home.

    Police searched the house on the morning of Aug. 9 and seized several computers, hard drives, and computer equipment.

    One DVD, listed in the search warrant return, is titled “Dateline NBC to Catch a Predator.”

    Investigators with Madigan’s High Tech Crimes Bureau used IP address information obtained from MySpace to learn that Courtright had been actively trading pornographic images over the Internet.

    “Child predators who think they are safe hiding behind a computer screen are no longer anonymous,” Madigan said in a written release. “We have the technology and we are committed to using all of our resources to seek them out and hold them accountable for their crimes.”

    It’s nice to see that a state attorney general is using the information to go after criminals and not just MySpace.

  • New Jersey AG eyes MySpace and others

    New Jersey asks 12 Web sites to check for sex offenders:

    New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram has not only asked MySpace for sex offender information she’s also asked eleven other sites to do the same.

    Attorney General Anne Milgram has asked for information from Xanga.com, Facebook, Community Connect, TagWorld, Bebo, MyYearbook.com, Tagged, Friendster, LiveJournal, Imeem, Hi5 and Gaia Online.

    I’ll give her this much, she’s thorough. Some of those sites I hadn’t even heard of. But like other states Attorneys General, she’s picking on MySpace…

    The Attorney General’s Office has issued three subpoenas to MySpace, but the 12 other sites will soon be getting letters from Milgram asking for help.

    And also like the other state Attorneys General, there’s no mention of parents doing a better job of monitoring their children.

  • Conn. SO arrested for MySpace profile

    Second man accused of parole violation by posting MySpace profile:

    21-year-old William Santos of Waterbury, CT was arrested for violating his parole by having a MySpace profile. Santos is a convicted sex offender. Of course, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal uses this one arrest to pat himself on the back.

    “This arrest demonstrates that many of these convicted sex offenders are violating their parole and socializing in the same space as millions of children,” Blumenthal said. “As astonishing and appalling as the discovery of thousands of sex offenders on MySpace, these convicted felons using their real names are only the tip of the predator iceberg.”

    Tip of the iceberg is an understatement. Yet while Mr. Blumenthal breaks his arm trying to pat himself on the back, Connecticut is home to the two of the most prolific MySpace predators David Leonard and Scott Shfelbine. Both have had multiple sexually related arrests and one of them is even walking free right now. What’s being done about men like that Mr. Blumenthal?

  • Predator sentenced, parent acts responsible

    Internet predator receives 17½ years:

    Now, this is a story about how responsible parents act.

    After a Naperville father noticed his daughter spending more time than usual on the Internet, he installed parental monitoring software to keep a closer eye on her.

    His action last summer may have kept the 13-year-old girl out of a convicted sex offender’s clutches.

    A Salt Lake City man was sentenced Tuesday to 17¨ years in federal prison in Utah for persuading the girl to send him sexually explicit photos of herself during three months of cyberspace chats and phone calls.

    Gerald Lee Wheeler, 41, was arrested last year in Utah after a multi-agency investigation. He pleaded guilty March 26 to one count of production of child pornography, which carries a mandatory 15-year minimum sentence.

    Prosecutors said Wheeler was trying to get the teen to meet him in New York for sex in exchange for a modeling contract. Fortunately, her father intervened before the girl was physically harmed.

    Of course, Wheeler is a registered sex offender in Utah.

    Anyway, do you see how easy it is to protect your kids? If not you shouldn’t be operating a computer in the first place.

  • Conn. MySpace SO arrest

    Sex Offender Accused Of Using MySpace:

    Now that the AGs have the names of the sex offenders on MySpace it’s time to round them up.

    Our first contestant is 30-year-old Christopher Montefusco (MySpace deleted). Of course, it happens in the MySpace predator capital of the U.S., Connecticut.

    Montefusco, 30, of West Haven, was convicted of first-degree sexual assault on Aug. 30, 1996. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison, suspended after two and half years served. Montefuso had two years of special parole remaining on his sentence when he was picked up by state Department of Correction officials Wednesday, Blumenthal said. Special parole usually involves close supervision and sometimes mandatory participation in support programs.

    While Blumenthal had no details about Montefusco’s underlying criminal charge, he said that one of the conditions of Montefusco’s parole was that he not use a computer, the Internet or access social networking sites such as MySpace without first obtaining permission from his parole officer.

    Of course, Attorney General Blumenthal is using this one arrest to stroke his own ego…

    “The results here demonstrate the urgent and clear need for this kind of information from MySpace and other social networking sites,” said Blumenthal, one of two attorneys general serving as chairman of a national task force on Internet safety. “Clearly, offenders like this are just the most visible tip of the predator iceberg.”

    Still no word from Mr. Blumenthal’s office about what they’re going to do about parents who don’t monitor their children’s internet usage.