Wacky Internet Predator Wednesday
This is a couple weeks’ worth of those wacky slimeballs getting caught for soliciting minors online. Last Wednesday I was at home for the 1st day with my new baby girl (yay!).
Here are three stories, in chronological order with links, of a collection of dirtbags arrested for soliciting minors online. Let these serve as reminders to parents that these guys are out there in large numbers. They are looking for your teenagers (not always girls) to solicit and take advantage of. Protect your kids with monitoring software like PC Pandora. Know what they are doing and obtain the information that will help you be an efficient and effective 21st century parent.
Max for Internet Predator Crew: 298 Years
WXYZ-TV
Eleven men branded as internet predators by Michigan’s attorney general have been caught in an online sting prowling for kids and hit with charges carrying a total of 298 years in prison.
“This internet predator sting was unique. Most focus only on those predators that travel. Not so with this project. If you solicit a child for sex, or send sexually graphic material to a youngster, you do not escape prosecution just because you never got off your couch,” Cox said in a statement.
The sting involved officers posing online as minors. The attorney general’s office was assisted in the case by the Wayne County Sheriff’s Office and the Van Buren Township Police Department.
GRAND RAPIDS — A statewide Internet child predator sting geared toward individuals who traveled to have sex with minors also nabbed some who allegedly solicited sex but didn’t leave home.
The sting is one of the first of its kind, state officials said. Joshua Fuhr, 21, of Grand Rapids, was arrested and charged with sending sexually explicit material to a minor and four counts of accosting and soliciting a minor for immoral purposes via the Internet.
If convicted, he could face as much as 44 years in prison.
Fuhr was part of the sting’s Phase II, which classifies an individual who chatted online with volunteers posing as minors but did not travel to the decoy location in Wayne County.
His arrest was one of 38 made throughout Michigan in the joint operation conducted by the Wayne County Sheriff’s Department, the Van Buren Township Department of Public Safety and the Attorney General’s office.
Fox Lake man admits using Facebook to solicit minors
Tribune staff report, May 27, 2008
The first person to be charged in Chicago’s federal court with using Facebook.com to solicit minors for sex pleaded guilty Tuesday to federal child pornography charges.
Michael Macalindong, 25, of Fox Lake faces 25 years to life in prison.
Prosecutors said Macalindong used the social-networking Web site to communicate with minors and then threatened to show photos of minors to their friends or expose their sexual activity.
He pleaded guilty to six counts of manufacturing child pornography, one count of possession of child pornography and one count of attempted child enticement.
