The defendants reportedly took sexually explicit photos of a child under age 12.

Two Valrico residents are facing multiple counts of child abuse, possession of pornography, sexual battery and other charges for photographing a child in sexual poses.

Charged are Elizabeth Wirick, 46, of 3320 Stonebridge Trail, in River Hills, Valrico, and Richard James Piccoli, 58, of the same address.According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office, on Tuesday, Jan. 17, a witness delivered a USB drive to the sheriff’s office that contained images recovered from Wirick and Piccoli’s laptop.

The USB drive contained 22 images depicting a child under age 12 engaging in sexual conduct and sexually explicit poses. The sheriff’s office said, in four of the images, the defendants induced the victim to engage in a sexual performance.

The sheriff’s office said these incidents occurred on two separate dates.

In three images, the sheriff’s office said Wirick forced or enticed the victim to touch her breast in a lewd manner.

In six images, the victim is posed next to the defendants with an adult sex toy. The images also show the victim using the sex toy on herself. The sheriff’s office said Wirick performed sexual activities with the victim while Piccoli posed in the photos with Wirick and the victim.

The offenses reported took place at the defendants’ home.

Wirick is charged with 22 counts of using a child in sexual performances, two counts of child abuse, three counts of lewd molestation, six counts of attempted capital sexual battery and two counts of lewd exhibition.

Piccoli is charged with 22 counts of possession of child pornography, four counts of using a child in a sexual performance and two counts of child abuse.

This isn’t Wirick’s first run-in with the law. She was arrested in 2006 for possession of cocaine and driving under the influence with property damage. She was arrested again in 2007 for DUI with property damage or injuries.

Piccoli has arrests dating back to 1999 for grand theft and felony petit theft.

Source: Bloomingdale Riverview Patch

A 24-year-old man, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, attended a bail hearing yesterday accused of possessing 466 images of child abuse, about 70 per cent of them Japanese animation.

Under the NT Criminal Code, any offensive material that “depicts, describes or represents” children engaged in sex, being subjected to torture or in a demeaning context is outlawed.Magistrate John Lowndes said it seemed to him the act was broad enough to cover cartoons of child abuse, or even written material.

“Some of the classics could even be considered abusive material,” Dr Lowndes said.

Prosecutor Sally Nicholas, told the bail hearing 72 of the images found on the man’s computers were level five child abuse images, showing torture of children.

Source: The Australian

The League said the owner and administrator of the website have been arrested, although no details were given about the time and place of the arrests. The website had roughly 130 members, most of them from Russia, although some were from Germany, France, Israel and former Soviet nations.It is believed the website had been operating for several years, and members were required to submit self-made child pornography in order to become a member. Some of the members of the pedophile ring also met in person, including meetings outside of Russia.

The two men arrested, both Russian citizens, were taken into custody on charges of the production of child pornography and the sexual abuse of children. One of them led a boy’s choir at a local children’s art school, although officials did not say whether children at the school had been abused.

“We need to take urgent measures to strengthen legislation [to protect children] before it is too late,” a League official said. “Lately the internet has become a haven for pedophiles and perverts – all because of the weakness of Russian law to resolve these issues.”

The League also called on Russian authorities to put in place laws which allow websites featuring child pornography to be blocked. “In Western countries, websites with not only child pornography but also adult pornography are blocked,” the official said. “In Russia, at the present time there are no mechanisms in place to protect children.”

More than 9,500 sex crimes against children were reported in Russia in 2009, including more than 960 child rapes. Despite the authorities’ declared fight against the sexual abuse of minors, police are often slow to respond to allegations of child abuse, according to activists.

Pavel Astakhov, Russia’s Children Rights Commissioner to President Dmitri Medvedev, previously suggested the existence of a “pedophile lobby” in the country’s lower house of parliament, which he believes is responsible for blocking legislation against child sex abuse.

However, in October, the lower house of parliament approved a bill stipulating the voluntary chemical castration for pedophiles and other rapists. Such a chemical castration is carried out with a series of injections, which cause a drop in testosterone, the male hormone that causes the individual’s sex drive. However, the effect is not irreversible.

Laws regarding the possession of child pornography have also been under discussion for years. Russia is only one of two major countries in the world where the simple possession of child pornography is legal, although the production of it is illegal. The second country is Japan where it is legal to possess child pornography as long as there is no intend to sell or distribute the material.

The new bill which was passed in October also introduces a life sentence as a possible punishment for pedophiles who are repeat offenders. In addition, pedophiles are stripped of the right to plea for a suspended sentence.

Source: Channel 6 News

For about 45 minutes, the judge, lawyers and a neuropsychologist had talked about Sundsmo.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Ryan W. Bounds made his pitch to the judge: Sundsmo, 41, pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography after previously raping a child, so he deserved 15 more years behind bars.U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones asked Sundsmo’s lawyer if her client was still interested in being surgically castrated to end the pedophilia that plagued him.

Francesca Freccero, Sundsmo’s lawyer, told the judge she didn’t know her client’s attitude about castration. She acknowledged that Sundsmo had considered “drastic measures,” including suicide, and hoped Jones would show a bit of mercy by sentencing him to the mandatory minimum: 10 years in prison.

“He literally has missing parts of his brain,” she said.

Sundsmo took a fall when he was 7 months old and had 15 surgeries before age 2. Today, about a third of his brain is missing, said Dennis P. Swiercinsky, a Portland neuropsychologist. He testified that Sundsmo’s brain injury left him with average intelligence but little control of his impulses.

Those impulses, and the hard evidence of his crime, hung over the court proceeding.

On Sept. 16, 2009, Multnomah County probation officers dropped in on pedophile Kevin J. Heasley and found him in a bedroom with Sundsmo, who had brought over a cache of child pornography. Illegal images shone on a nearby computer screen.

Investigators found more than 4,600 graphic images on Sundsmo’s thumb drive, including 29 that depicted “sadomasochistic abuse of children,” according to a government sentencing memo.

The judge asked Sundsmo if he cared to speak before he imposed sentence.

Sundsmo stood and acknowledged that he struggled with pedophilia.

“I been fighting it all my life — or most of my life,” he said. “All I get is locked up.”

Jones sentenced him to 15 years and eight months in prison.

Source: Oregon Live

The Brisbane District Court was told computer expert Jason Chiaravalle came under investigation after the Australian Federal Police received a tip-off from German police on December 8, 2008.

The court was told Chiaravalle was working as an information technology systems engineer when police searched his home at Newmarket, on Brisbane’s northside, on April 29, 2009, and seized electrical equipment including 14-computer hard drives.

Commonwealth prosecutor Anthony Gett revealed Chiaravalle, then aged 21, became a convicted child sex offender in 2001 when he pleaded guilty in the district court to four counts of unlawful carnal knowledge, meaning sexual intercourse, with a “13-year-old schoolgirl’’ he had befriended.

Chiaravalle, now aged 34, was yesterday jailed for three years after pleading guilty to one Commonwealth criminal offence of using a carriage service, the internet, to download child pornography of children aged from “toddler to 16-years’’ between March 9, 2006, and April 29, 2009.

He also pleaded guilty to one Queensland offence of possessing child exploitation material.

Judge Kerry O’Brien ordered Chiaravalle be released after serving 12-months in custody and placed him on a further two-year probation order.

Mr Gett, in a schedule of facts tendered in court, said the AFP received information from German police about an internet application, known as eDonkey2000, sharing child pornography material to users throughout the world.

“German police referred to the AFP an number of captured Australian Internet Protocol (IP) addresses which were suspected of downloading child pornography material via eDonkey 2000 between July 2008 and November 2008,’’ the schedule says.

“A number of the captured IP addresses … were resolved back to (Chiaravalle).’’

The court was told police raided Chiaravalle’s Newmarket home and “seized a large quantity and complex network of computer equipment which … revealed a large quantity of child pornography material’’ had been obtained.

“Police observed that parts of the system had password protection, encryption and other security measures employed,’’ the schedule says.

“(Chiaravalle) was served with a Magistrates order that he supply passwords and assistance to police so they could access his computers.’’

Mr Gett said during the search of Chiaravalle’s home he told police: “Yeah, I have done some stupid things.’’

He said a federal agent spent an extensive period of time viewing millions of files on Chiaravalle’s computer equipment before being able establish as many as 325,435 contained images or videos of child pornography.

The court was told that while most of the material depicted children either nude or in erotic poses, there were thousands of images involving more offensive pornography of children engaged in actual sex acts.

Barrister Michael Nicholson, for Chiaravalle, said his client did not distribute, pay money for or create any of the pornography downloaded or found his possession.

He said Chiaravalle was an information technology specialist and employed as a systems engineer at the time of his arrest.iaravalle was an information technology specialist and employed as a systems engineer at the time of his arrest.

Source: Courier Mail

The Brisbane District Court was told Craig Anthony Ellis broke into the family’s Aspley home on Brisbane’s northside and sexually assaulted the toddler on January 21, 2009.

Ellis, then aged 29, tried to flee when the girl’s parents were awoken by their daughter’s muffled cries – resulting in the toddler’s father crash tackling the naked intruder while the mother struck the pedophile with an ornamental samurai sword.Judge Michael Rackemann said Ellis’ behaviour and abuse of the girl was “very disturbing” and warranted an eight-year term.

During today’s hearing Ellis threatened to kill the judge, the prosecutor, his child victim and her mother

However, the judge said because Ellis had already been behind bars on remand for two years and nine months, a sentence of five years and three-months was appropriate under the circumstances.

Ellis will be eligible for release on parole on January 21, 2013 – after having spent a total of four years in jail – but it would up to parole authorities to consider if he would be suitable for release at that time.

Judge Rackemann also ordered a transcript of today’s hearing, complete with Ellis’s explicit menacing threats, be referred to Queensland’s Director of Public Prosecutions Tony Moynihan, SC, to consider whether Ellis should face further criminal charges.

Ellis, who was placed in the purpose-built enclosed glass dock of Court 7 due to previous court outbursts, unleashed a tirade of expletive-riddled abuse shortly after proceedings started after 10am.

At various times Ellis threatened prosecutor Vicki Loury, before then turning on Judge Rackemann and then the victim’s family – telling them “you’re going to end up dead.”

Ellis even went so far to call various people either “corrupt”, a “whore”, “pedophiles’ or “a sick piece of s***t” before describing himself as “the f***ing victim.”

In September last year Ellis, then aged 31, pleaded not guilty to charges of burglary and rape.

Judge Rackemann said on the third day of a District Court jury trial that Ellis changed his plea to guilty to burglary and two counts of indecent treatment of a child aged under 12 years after the Crown’s overwhelming case against Ellis became even stronger

Ellis, the court was told, broke into the girl’s home and removed the toddler’s pyjama pants before sexually assaulting her and taking indecent photographs of her.

The young girl’s parents, who had earlier in the day celebrated their son’s birthday, awoke to find a naked Ellis walking from their daughter’s bedroom.

The parents noticed their daughter was awake, huddled on her bed and that her pyjama pants had been removed, but she was still wearing her Dora the Explorer top.

The girl’s mother testified she was awoken by her daughter’s muffled cries and found the toddler with “her knees up to her chest and she was crying.”

The toddler’s father testified: “I tackled him to the ground in our hallway. I was going to do whatever it took to stop him getting away.”

In the 13 months since the trial, Ellis has been refused an application to change his guilty plea and sacked several sets of lawyers.

Judge Rackemann today gave Ellis several opportunities to make submissions on sentence, but was forced to order the pedophile’s removal from the court on several occasions as his behaviour deteriorated into often unintelligible rants and threats.

Source: News

The five defendants, who include a serving soldier, are facing a range of charges at Portsmouth Crown Court including the sexual assault of children and making and distributing indecent photos of children.The case centres around Melissa Noon, 29, of Tyseley Road, Portsmouth, and her partner Robert Hathaway who set up a nudist website as a guise to distribute indecent photos and videos of children and to arrange meetings with other people to abuse youngsters.

Kerry Maylin, prosecuting, told the trial that the paedophile ring raped and abused two children, both under 13.

Noon faces three charges of causing a child to engage in sexual activity, one of causing a child to watch a sexual act, two of sexual assault of a child, three of arranging a child sex offence, one of inciting a child to engage in sexual activity and two of possessing indecent photographs of children.

Simon Hilton, 28, of Wolsey Road, London, faces a charge of arranging a child sex offence. Mark Day, 45, of Whitefriars Meadow, Sandwich, Kent, faces two charges of arranging a child sex offence.

Daniel Bell, 26, a serving soldier living in military accommodation but previously of St James Road, Emsworth, Hampshire, faces two charges of arranging a child sex offence, two of possessing indecent photos of children and one of attempting to distribute an indecent image of children.

John Maddox, 46, of Ellis Avenue, Rainham, Essex, faces a charge of causing a child to engage in sexual activity.

The trial has heard that Hathaway, 36, of Tyseley Road, Portsmouth, has previously pleaded guilty to 26 counts of sexual behaviour towards children, including rape, and 17 counts of possessing indecent images of children.

Source: UK Press

The legislative resolution was adopted by the European Parliament with 541 votes in favour, two against and 31 abstentions.

The directive will also require EU countries to remove child porn web sites, or, should this prove impossible, allow them to block access to those pages within their territory.The directive, already agreed by MEPs and home affairs ministers, will introduce EU-wide requirements on prevention, prosecution of offenders and protection for victims.

EU member states will have two years to transpose the new rules into national law.

“The new directive to combat sexual abuse and exploitation of children and child pornography is an innovative legislative instrument and a step forward for the protection of our children,” said Roberta Angelilli (EPP, IT), who steered the legislation through the European Parliament.

“The text will be available to the competent authorities and NGOs, so that there is zero tolerance of all crimes against children” Angelilli said.

The text sets out minimum penalties for about 20 criminal offences – far more than are usually provided for in EU legislation.

MEPs fought for tougher penalties across the EU, especially in cases of abuse by persons in a position of trust, authority or influence over the child (e.g. family members, guardians or teachers) or abuse of particularly vulnerable children (e.g. those with a physical or mental disability or under the influence of drugs or alcohol).

For instance, coercing a child into sexual actions or forcing a child into prostitution will be punishable by at least 10 years in prison. Child pornography producers will face at least three years, and viewers of child pornography on the web at least one year.

On-line “grooming” (befriending children via the web with the intention of sexually abusing them) will also become a criminal offence across the EU, as will child sex tourism, where the offence is committed on an EU member state’s territory or by one of its nationals abroad.

EU member states will have to ensure the prompt removal of web pages containing or disseminating child pornography hosted in their territory. They will also have to do their best to co-operate with third countries (US and others) to obtain the removal of such pages if hosted outside the EU.

However, the removal of child pornography content at its source is often not possible (e.g. because the state where servers are hosted is unwilling to co-operate or because removal would take too long).

In these cases, EU member states may block access to those pages for internet users in their territory, says the text agreed with the European Council.

These measures to block access to web pages will have to follow transparent procedures and provide adequate safeguards.

The number of web sites devoted to child pornography is growing and it is estimated that 200 images containing child pornography are put into circulation every day. Ever younger children are portrayed in pornography, and the images are becoming more graphic and more violent.

Because about 20 per cent of sex offenders go on to commit further offences after conviction, the directive stipulates that convicted offenders “may be temporarily or permanently prevented from exercising at least professional activities involving direct and regular contacts with children”.

Employers when recruiting will be entitled to request information on convictions for sexual offences against children. EU countries will also be entitled to take other measures, such as listing convicted persons in “sex offender registers”.

The directive is expected to be formally adopted by the EU Council of Ministers before the end of the year. Member states will then have two years to transpose the new rules into their national laws.

“The Commission made it clear one year ago that the EU will not tolerate children being used as objects to satisfy the sexual desire of criminals, or traded as commodities. I am extremely pleased that the European Parliament and the Council have lent their support to this proposal,” said Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner responsible for Home Affairs.

“With this directive we can make a difference. We are making it easier to prosecute and prevent crimes against children, and we are strengthening the protection of victims. I am confident that this new EU legislation will make a real difference in protecting children from these horrible crimes,” Malmström said.

Source: The Sofia Echo

A rare shaft of light has shone on one of the darkest corners of the internet in recent days. A latter-day Sodom and Gomorrah, it is a place where rape and murder are openly advertised, and earthly authorities appear almost powerless to intervene.

This is the lawless world of darknets and specifically the Hidden Wiki, a site that isn’t on the web, that nobody reaches directly from Google and that can only be accessed using special tools.This digital underworld has come to the attention of law-abiding web users thanks to an illegal, if arguably not immoral, act. Last week, Anonymous, a self-styled digital protest movement, hacked into Lolita City, a website advertised on the Hidden Wiki that offered gigabytes of images of child abuse to paying paedophiles.

Anonymous “hacktivists” first approached the company hosting Lolita City and demanded it remove the abhorrent material. When their demands were ignored, they launched a two-pronged digital assault, forcing the hosting company offline and breaching the security of Lolita City’s systems to publicly expose the login details of more than 1,500 paedophiles.

“It does not matter who you are, if we find you to be hosting, promoting, or supporting child pornography, you will become a target,” Anonymous said.

The action attracted attention in part because it represented a significant shift in tactics for Anonymous, which has previously targeted government agencies and corporations for hacking. But for many the mere existence of the Hidden Wiki and its unsavoury yet openly available contents was revelatory.

The site does not just help paedophiles, who are even offered advice on creating new secure websites to distribute more images of child abuse. It also promotes money laundering services, contract killing, cyber attacks to order and restricted chemicals, along with instructions on how to make explosives.

There is nothing technically remarkable about the Hidden Wiki itself. It looks like any other basic website, with user-updated lists of links, organised into categories.

“The big deal about the Hidden Wiki was that it was put up as the dark market of ideas and wares,” said Scot Terban, an independent security researcher who was among the first to draw attention to the Hidden Wiki outside its underground audience.

“It’s kind of like any black market operation except this one was in cyberspace and pretty much completely anonymous.

“Because it was anonymous, people felt free to trade openly in illegal things, mess around by putting up ads for services like hired assassins, and in the end, became a haven for paedophiles and their content.”

The Hidden Wiki relies on free software called Tor to accomplish this anonymity and to remain out of sight of the average web user. Tor users’ internet traffic is bounced around a global network of computers that obscure its true source. A website on the network, such as the Hidden Wiki, can only be accessed by those who have installed the Tor software, and its own location is also obscured.

So when a user accesses the Hidden Wiki, neither end knows with whom they are really communicating. Any police or intelligence authority trying to investigate the trade in images of child abuse or contract killing would find it much more difficult than under normal circumstances on the web.

The irony of this is that Tor was actually invented by the US government and the software itself is completely legal, at least in the West. While it can help paedophiles avoid detection, it also helps dissidents in Iran and China to circumvent online censorship and surveillance. Tor is now maintained and developed on a non-profit basis by a group of talented security engineers with funding from the US state department.

“When I wrote about the Hidden Wiki before, I had already contacted the FBI and they knew of it,” said Mr Terban.

“They said that it was in the Tor network, and there wasn’t much they could do. The way I see it, in this instance, the Anonymous collective did a public service by exposing it and Lolita City. The authorities either lack the skills to do this, or, they are legally bound not to.”

Some security experts disagree with Mr Terban’s positive view of Anonymous’ action, which has sparked a debate about online vigilantism.

Investigations could have been compromised when paedophiles were exposed, it’s argued.

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, British policing’s specialist agency for investigating child abuse, is aware of the Hidden Wiki and other darknets, and the challenges they pose.

“We cannot talk about specific sites for operational reasons. However we are aware that some child sex offenders are using these systems in an attempt to conceal their identity and activities,” a spokesman said.

“So called ‘hidden sites’ are not new and the system they use poses some challenges to law enforcement. We continue to use a variety of techniques to monitor online environments used by offenders so we can identify them and safeguard children.”

It’s some task. Estimates vary wildy, but the Hidden Wiki is just one part of an underground internet which is thought to be hundreds of times larger than the web most of us use every day.

Source: Telegraph

Richard Paul Baxter, 63, is the third person in three weeks to face court over the eight years of alleged abuse endured by the girl at a property in Brisbane’s southern suburbs, which police say ended only last month.

Mr Baxter was arrested on Monday and charged with 94 counts of indecent treatment of a child, four counts of obtaining prostitution and one count of making child exploitation material since 2004.His appearance follows the charging of a 60-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman earlier this month, also in connection with the ongoing police investigation, Operation Juliet Ostrich.

The pair, both from the southside suburb of Runcorn, were each charged with 15 offences including rape, sexual assault, indecent treatment of children, procuring prostitution and making child exploitation material.

Making Mr Baxter’s bail application yesterday, solicitor Adam Magill said his client had lived in Brisbane for 50 years and was not a flight risk.

The man would be contesting the charges against him, Mr Magill said.

Magistrate Judy Daly ordered Mr Baxter be bailed on strict conditions, including that he refrain from contacting the girl or going within 100m of her address.

He has also been ordered to surrender his passport and not approach a point of international departure.

Child protection detectives launched Operation Juliet Ostrich in September after they received serious allegations of sexual abuse towards the girl.

Mr Baxter will reappear for a court mention next month.

Source: The Australian