41 charged in child porn sweep
Pastor Dale Morgan
*41 charged in child porn sweep*
From correspondents in New York
October 05, 2007 06:49am
Article from: Agence France-Presse
POLICE in the US state of New Jersey have charged 41 people with
possession or distribution of child pornography after a more than
two-month investigation, officials said today.
The 41, aged between 14 and 71, were arrested over the past 10 days in a
state-wide sweep that yielded computers and other digital media, police
said.
"Many who have sexually assaulted children started down that road with
child porn," New Jersey police Colonel Rick Fuentes said.
"This operation places a roadblock in their path. Those convicted of the
charges announced today will become registered sex offenders and no
longer be able to fly under the radar," he said.
A list of those arrested revealed that several of the suspects were
users of social-networking sites MySpace and Facebook, but New Jersey
officials did not explain whether there was a connection with their arrests.
New Jersey earlier this week issued a subpoena against Facebook to find
out whether any of the state's registered sex offenders were registered
on the site. It followed a similar move against MySpace earlier in the year.
Authorities from the US states of Connecticut and North Carolina said in
July that MySpace had identified 29,000 convicted sex offenders that had
profile pages on the popular website.
Officials have repeatedly warned that such sites provide a rich hunting
ground for pedophiles posing as regular network users.