A 26-year-old man here unwittingly became the first known target of a live Internet wiretap used by federal agents investigating child porn under a law passed in April 2003.
Every Website visit, e-mail, photo image, and chat conversation Jason Morgan saw or participated in for three weeks was being watched through the tap by way of his keystrokes, according to the Sacramento Bee. That followed Morgan’s first coming to authorities' attention by way of his cruising chat rooms said to be frequented by pedophiles, the paper said.
The law under which Morgan got tapped was the Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today (PROTECT), giving law enforcement the right to tap a computer to nail child abusers and Internet pornographers, but authorities still had to convince a federal judge to authorize the tap on Morgan's computer.
Morgan is in federal custody and has pleaded not guilty to child porn charges, but the Bee added that the wiretap information led to his also facing charges of multiple sex crimes against children in Butte County, California.
Federal also tracked about 1,700 e-mail and chat users with whom Morgan had contact as part of a broad child porn ring, with suspects in Las Vegas and Live Oak and Stockton, California arrested based on what these wiretaps yielded, the Bee said.
In other news on the fight against child porn and child sex crimes:
NORRISTOWN, Penn. – A 57-year-old man who thought he was arranging a sex encounter with a 12-year-old girl online has learned the hard way he was talking to an investigator acting the role. Jonathan Slott faces charges of attempting to commit rape, attempting to commit statutory sexual assault, and other offenses, and is being held on $200,000 bail following his arrest.
CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. – Already serving up to 50 years for raping numerous teen girls he met online, James Comfort got another 6-18 years added to that sentence, for his April conviction on three more rape charges and endangering the welfare of a child, involving sex contact with four more girls 15 and under.
POLK, Penn. – A Monroe County man considered the prime suspect in the Pike County killing of his former girlfriend and their seven-month-old daughter is out of jail on child porn charges. Gregory Allen Rowe posted $10,000 bail. Police have said they found child porn on Rowe's computer while searching for evidence in the killings.
