Re: On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach [repost]
Baal
Hash: SHA512
Brandon D Cartwright wrote in alt.support.girl-lovers on September 1,
2008 16:23 in Message-ID: <vhjob4hiqo0q9d49o...@4ax.com>:
> On the Web, Pedophiles Extend Their Reach
>
>
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/21/technology/21pedo.html?_r=1&ref=technology
>
> Phillip J. Distasio, who has been charged with raping two boys, has
> argued on the Web in favor of legalizing sex with children.
>
> By KURT EICHENWALD
[snip]
Kurt Eichenwald's reputation has been somewhat tarnished of late, as the
following article shows:
http://www.counterpunch.org/nathan09142007.html
September 14, 2007
New York Times reporter was a member of an illegal underage porn
site, claims he was only "posing as online predator"
By DEBBIE NATHAN
A New York Times reporter not only gave money to a child
pornographer, but did business with him and even signed on to an
illegal porn website as a member and administrator, documents
unsealed yesterday in a federal criminal proceeding in Nashville
reveal. He claims in one court document, he only "posed" as a
pedophile.
The reporter is Kurt Eichenwald, who quit the Times in October,
2006. He already had a lot of explaining to do earlier this year
about his conduct while working on the Justin Berry story when it
was revealed in March that, without telling his editors, he gave
$2,000 to Berry -- an 18-year-old who'd spent five years making
child porn of himself, when Eichenwald first contacted him in
2005. By then, Berry was an adult recruiting minors to perform
sexually on webcams. After discovering this, Eichenwald found
Berry a lawyer, who took him to the Department of Justice and
got him immunity from prosecution in exchange for turning state's
evidence against four mostly gay and young men. All were eventually
charged and convicted of making and distributing porn depicting
underage teen boys. After Eichenwald wrote a blockbuster story
about Berry for the Times, his journalism techniques aroused
controversy in press circles. Even so, no one knew about the
$2,000 check, and most of the media feted him.
Press adulation evaporated in March of this year however, when
revelations of the $2,000 check emerged at a criminal trial in
Michigan for one of the four accused men. Testifying there,
Eichenwald said he was not acting as a reporter when he gave
Berry the money, but was trying to save him from sexual
exploitation and later demanded the money back before he started
doing a Times piece.
This summer, a court hearing in the Nashville case revealed that
Eichenwald gave yet more money to Berry, again without telling his
editors. CounterPunch was the first to report this, and days later,
the Times picked up the story. The Times didn't say what the money
-- $1,184 -- bought, and Eichenwald demurred that he had no
independent recollection of having spent it. Two days after the
Times report, he resigned from the Conde Nast financial magazine
Portfolio without explanation.
The Nashville court documents unsealed yesterday reveal the
following:
* Using a fake name, Eichenwald spent $1,184 to buy digital
photos from Berry. It is not clear whether they were
pornographic, or if they were made when Berry was under age
18 or older. But PayPal allows purchasers to send memos with
their money, and Eichenwald sent Berry several messages
discussing the quality of the pictures he bought. "I found
a pretty good one but the lighting sucks... still worth 100."
"There are just 20 in the file, and most of them are nothing
(shots of beds and driveways, or you rolling a joint)."
"I found 3 so far that I either didn't already have and were
good." "100... we gotta talk about what the really good ones
are." (The ellipses are in the court document.)
* Eichenwald encouraged Berry in his business endeavors while
Berry was making child porn. In one PayPal message from June
2005, cited in the Nashville documents, Eichenwald writes
Berry that "I'll be online today. Find me and lemme know what
to do. And I have other proposals for you that would get you
even more money."
* During this same period, Eichenwald sent Berry the $2,000
check. In the Michigan trial, he testified that he assumed
when he sent it that Berry was broke. Documents just unsealed
in Nashville reveal that hours after receiving the money,
Berry videotaped a 14-year-old boy masturbating. A few days
later, he uploaded the illegal tape to JustinsFriends.com,
his gay porn website that had lain dormant for months. Soon
JustinFriends.com was up and running again, with new content,
including masturbatory images of the 14-year old.
* Under the pseudonym "Roy Rogers," Eichenwald was signed on as
a member of the revivified JustinsFriends.com. But he was no
ordinary member: He had administrative privileges, meaning he
could enter areas of the internet open only to site managers
with an administrative password. He used this privilege to enter
an area where one could monitor new subscriptions to the illegal
porn site. He visited this area over 20 times in late June, 2005.
All this information has come out in Tennessee federal court because
one of the four convicted men, Timothy Richards, is trying to convince
a judge that Eichenwald and Berry engaged in a conspiracy to entrap
him into Berry's criminal activities with underage pornography. In
extensive filings which Eichenwald and his lawyers tried for weeks
to keep sealed, Richards' allegations are vigorously contested.
Rather than conspiring, Eichenwald says in one filing, he was just
trying to learn more about Berry. After consultation with his wife,
he adopted the tactic of "posing as an online predator." In 1999,
National Public Radio freelancer Larry Matthews was successfully
prosecuted by the Department of Justice after working on a story
about child porn in which he impersonated a pedophile online by
using a pseudonym and downloading illegal material.
In addition to two civil attorneys, Eichenwald recently retained a
criminal defense lawyer. He is Stephen Ryan, whom Eichenwald often
cited in financial stories when he worked for the New York Times.
Ryan is also the defense attorney for Justin Berry.
Not only Eichenwald but also the Times has a lot more explaining to
do. In March the paper's public editor, Byron Calame, savaged
Eichenwald over the $2,000 check, while giving Eichenwald's editor,
Larry Ingrassia, a pass. But now it seems more and more extraordinary
that New York Times editors did not conclude that Eichenwald's
dealings with Berry had far transcended anything that could be
regarded as appropriate for an objective reporter. Even so, the
Times was happy to publish a hyped story which led to a hysterical
circus of congressional hearings and fueled witch-hunting legislation
against not just sex offenders, but even teen networking sites such as
MySpace.
After the documents were unsealed this reporter contacted the New
York Times asking whether they were previously aware of Eichenwald's
actions as now revealed in the court documents in Nashville. The Times
was asked specifically about five points:
1. Eichenwald used the $1,184 PayPal payments he paid Justin Berry to
buy photos from Justin. Was Eichenwald's editor or anyone else at
the Times aware that Eichenwald was engaged in business transactions
with Justin in 2005 around the time of the buying of photos?
2. Eichenwald told Berry during this time that he could help him with
ideas to make more money. Is this something the Times was aware of?
3. Hours after Eichenwald paid Justin Berry $2,000 on June 8, 2005,
Berry produced a video of a 14-year-old boy masturbating. Was the
Times aware of this?
4. Images of the 14-year old masturbating were uploaded a few days
later to a heretofore dormant gay porn website run by Berry. During
this period, Eichenwald became a member of the same website. Was the
Times aware he was a member?
5. Eichenwald was not merely a member of the illegal site mentioned
above. He also had administrative privileges to enter it, involving
a special password available only to those managing the site. He
used the password more than 20 times in late June, 2005 to sign
onto the site. Was the Times aware of this?
The Times responded that it is "in the process of independently
reviewing" the documents unsealed in Nashville.
Debbie Nathan is a New York City-based journalist who writes about
sexual politics and immigration. She can be reached at
naess2 <AT> gmail.com
Baal <Ba...@Usenet.org>
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Retired Lecturer, Encryption and Data Security, Pedo U, Usenet Campus
- --
"Sed quis custodiet ipsos Custodes?" -- "Who will watch the Watchmen?"
-- Juvenal, Satires, VI, 347. circa 128 AD
The state must declare the child to be the most precious treasure of the
people. As long as the government is perceived as working for the benefit
of the children, the people will happily endure almost any curtailment of
liberty and almost any deprivation. -- Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
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