Pandora’s Blog

We come to another weekly installment of our famous Wacky Internet Predators. Woo hoo! You know, the fears may be “overblown,” but it doesn’t take an idiot to read these stories and realize that the stats may be low on victims, but the reality is clear: these guys exist and they are real.

Lots to share and it’s late so, without further ado…

• A 34-year-old from Pennsylvania was convicted of “interstate travel with the intent to engage in a sexual act with minor”
• A 26-year-old from South Dakota was arrested after he agreed to meet someone who he thought was an underage girl for sex
• A married NYC couple has been sentenced to state prison on charges of the rape of two young girls under the age of 15 who they met through the social networking site MySpace.
• A 30-year-old man from Nebraska was arrested forr trying to solicit a minor online for sex.

(p.s. these are just more reasons to use PC Pandora computer monitoring software to make sure your kids aren’t talking to strangers)

Here are the stories with links:

January 8,
MARYLAND AUTHORITIES CONVICT PENNSYLVANIA MAN WHO SOUGHT TO HAVE SEX WITH A CHILD
Defendant Proposed Sex within Minutes of Internet Meeting on Thursday; Drove to Maryland the Next Tuesday to Abuse Child

Baltimore, Maryland – Patrick G. Mahan, age 34, of Lincoln University, Pennsylvania, pleaded guilty today to interstate travel with the intent to engage in a sexual act with minor, announced United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein.

“If parents do not monitor their children’s internet use every day, it might be too late,” said U.S. Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein. “Within minutes after Patrick Mahan ‘met’ a child in an internet chat room, Mahan solicited the girl for sex. Within five days, Mahan traveled from Pennsylvania to Maryland to follow through on his plan to abuse the child. This case demonstrates how quickly internet predators are able and willing to act when they find vulnerable children.”

According to his guilty plea, on May 29, 2008, while working in an undercover capacity, a Baltimore County Police detective posing as a minor girl from Baltimore County, Maryland, was contacted by “searay1974,” later found to be Mahan, who e-mailed that he wanted to meet her. Mahan and the detective, still posing as the girl, had a lengthy online chat during which Mahan asked if she was a cop. Mahan also explicitly solicited the girl for vaginal, anal and oral sex. Mahan agreed to meet the girl on June 3, 2008, at a location in Baltimore County between 9:00-9:30 a.m. Mahan described the truck he would be driving and said that he lived in Pennsylvania. Mahan also emailed the girl a photograph of himself.

On June 3, 2008, members of the Baltimore County Police Department Crimes Against Children Unit saw a truck matching the description provided by Mahan arrive at the pre-arranged location at 9:30 a.m. As a detective approached the truck he noticed that the driver, later identified as Patrick G. Mahan, looked like the photo sent to the girl. The detective saw Mahan throwing his cellphone on the floor of the truck and Mahan told the detective that he had just made a phone call from the cellphone and was there to meet a girl.

Following his arrest, a box of condoms, a cellphone and $199 in cash was recovered from the pick-up truck. Mahan admitted traveling that morning from his home in Pennsylvania to Baltimore County, Maryland, and that he brought the condoms and money in case he needed them for sexual purposes when he met with the girl with whom he had been chatting on the internet.

Mahan faces a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison, followed by supervised release for life. U.S. District Judge Richard D. Bennett has scheduled sentencing for April 3, 2009.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. Details about Maryland’s program are available at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein praised the Baltimore County Police Department Crimes Against Children Unit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger and his office for their assistance in this investigation and prosecution. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney P. Michael Cunningham, who is prosecuting the case.

January 9, 2009
Legislators take aim at Internet predators; Bills would ease sex sting prosecutions
Matthew Gruchow, Argus Leader

The first person to be arrested this year by the Sioux Falls Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit will face fewer charges than previous suspects in similar cases, as legislators decide this session how best to align state law with the unit’s work.

Nicholas Gran Kirnyczuk, 26, of Sioux Falls was arrested Wednesday afternoon after he agreed to meet someone who he thought was an underage girl for sex, police spokesman Sam Clemens said. He is charged with a single count of solicitation of a minor, but not with attempted sexual contact as well, which has been done in past cases.

But lawmakers this session have introduced at least one bill that would increase the penalty of a solicitation charge, while other legislators examine whether to revise the attempted sexual contact statutes to include fictitious victims such as those in Internet sex stings when investigators pose as minors online.
In the meantime, investigators have talked with county prosecutors and decided that the solicitation of a minor charge is most appropriate for the Kirnyczuk case, Clemens said.

“That’s a slight change based on how the state has been prosecuting these and the rulings that some judges have had,” Clemens said.
In some recent similar cases, prosecutors have dismissed the attempted sexual contact charge because state law does not appear to apply to fictitious victims.

Lawmakers this year probably will draft legislation to address the penalties associated with solicitation of minors as well as look at how to rewrite the attempted sexual contact law so that it includes fictitious victims, said Rep. Joni Cutler, R-Sioux Falls and chairwoman of the House judiciary committee.

“Because if someone is doing more than soliciting, where they’re taking steps towards having sex with this young person, that’s more than a solicitation, and we want to make sure that (police and prosecutors) have the tools to enforce that crime,” Cutler said. “And if they don’t, we need to know what they feel is lacking or what needs to be changed.”
Sen. Sandy Jerstad, D-Sioux Falls, said she entered a bill Dec. 3 that would move solicitation of a minor from a Class 6 felony to a Class 4 felony, effectively increasing the penalty to a maximum of 10 years in prison. That was the easier solution to both imposing a stiffer sentence for sexual predators and not becoming bogged down in redefining the attempted sexual contact statute, she said.

“We can’t change that law because there is no victim,” Jerstad said. “So there’s no way of getting around it.”
Sexual predators should be off the streets for “as long as possible,” she said. “I consider online solicitation to be far more dangerous an act than approaching someone, because you get into a young person’s mind … and that’s much more damaging.”

Kirnyczuk had been under investigation by the police department’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit for at least two weeks, Clemens said. He was arrested at an undisclosed location in Sioux Falls.

In Kirnyczuk’s first court appearance Thursday, prosecutors said he admitted to having the online chat with someone he thought was a 13-year-old girl, and he was arrested after arranging to deliver a Web camera to the girl.
At one point during the investigation, prosecutors said Kirnyczuk used his own Web camera to expose himself online.

Kirnyczuk is being held on a $40,000 bond and faces a maximum of two years in prison and a $5,000 fine if convicted.

Jan 12, 2009
York Man Arrested on Suspicion of Online Child Enticement

The following is a press release from Attorney General Jon Bruning’s office:

(Lincoln, Neb.) Joshua R. Hoover, 30, of York was arrested on suspicion of violating Nebraska’s online child enticement law.

A joint effort by the Attorney General’s Office and the Lincoln Police Department led to the arrest.

Hoover contacted an Attorney General’s Office investigator posing as an underage girl on an instant messaging Internet site. Hoover used both a computer and his cellular phone to engage in sexually-explicit conversations with the investigator, send nude pictures of himself and later set up a time and location to meet and have a sexual encounter.

“Technology allows Internet predators to contact victims in any town in Nebraska and nationwide. That’s why teamwork is essential,” said Bruning. “Our office, along with local law enforcement, is committed to protecting children and will use every tool available to carry out the task.”

Lincoln police arrested Hoover in northwest Lincoln on Saturday. Hoover is being held in the Lancaster County Jail. Bond will be set at his first court appearance which is today at 2 p.m. in Lancaster County Court.

January 13, 2009
Stripper Duo Get Prison For MySpace Rape

QUEENS—Julio Rojas and Sophie Soto, a married Corona couple who pleaded guilty to felony charges in connection with the rape of two young girls under the age of 15 who they met through the social networking site MySpace, have been sentenced to state prison.

Rojas, 32, who pleaded guilty in November to two counts of first-degree rape to satisfy two separate indictments filed in 2007 and 2008, was sentenced by Queens Supreme Court Justice Daniel Lewis to a determinate term of eight years in state prison.

His guilty plea covered a 2006 rape in which he used force to have sexual intercourse with a minor and a 2007 rape in which he had sexual intercourse with a minor rendered incapable of consent by reason of being physically helpless.

Soto, 23, who pleaded guilty, also in November, to one count of promoting a sexual performance by a child for directing an underage teenage girl to take pictures of herself depicting the lewd exhibition of her genitals and directing her to send them to Soto through electronic communication, was sentenced by Justice Lewis to an indeterminate term of two to six years in prison.

Both defendants will be required to register as sex offenders. In addition, Justice Lewis signed orders of protection for the two young victims that don’t expire until 2023 in Soto’s case and 2025 in the case of Rojas.

District Attorney Richard A. Brown said, “The defendants used the Internet to lure obviously troubled young girls to their apartment where they plied them with liquor and sexually assaulted them. The consequences of the assaults forever and profoundly altered the lives of their victims. As such, the prison sentences imposed today will ensure that other youngsters are protected from such sexual predators.”

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