Thirty-nine arrests in a ten-day period including January 27. That's New Jersey's tally in a case of Internet-obtained child porn clips showing the molestation and rape of a five-year-old Georgia girl.
"We will prosecute anyone who knowingly downloads from the Internet and circulates images of children who are being sexually exploited," New Jersey Attorney General Peter Harvey said in a statement. "Through technology and training we are constantly enhancing our ability to do just that."
The technology involves a file-sifting software program to trace the images in question to the personal computers on which they were stored. That led to the arrests of 39 people ranging in age from 14 to 61, including a high school hockey coach, an attorney, and a pediatric neurosurgeon, according to authorities.
The clips showed the girl being molested and raped by James Bidwell, who was convicted three years ago of sending videos of the crimes over the Internet to Canada and Britain. He's serving 45 years in prison for the crimes.
"Many people think that child pornography is the difference between 15 versus 18 years old," said Adult Sites Against Child Pornography executive director Joan Irvine when she learned to the arrests. "These arrests demonstrate the extent of the problem. This five-year old girl is damaged for life and people did this to make money. Anyone that knowingly viewed this should be prosecuted."
She said ASACP has technology to find child porn images no matter how large or small and catalogue them with hash techniques similar to those used by state and federal authorities, but those require state and federal approval to use. ASACP, she said, is working to get that permission.
