VA: Officers Receive Awards For Internet Sting Resulting In Capture Of Child Molesters.......
Slimpickins
3 local officers honored for creating Internet sting
BY MARK BOWES
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER May 24, 2001
Three local law enforcement officers received national awards yesterday for
their work in an Internet sting operation that resulted in the arrests and
convictions of two Glen Allen men who sexually abused a 12-year-old boy and
tried selling him for sex acts over the Internet for the purpose of making
pornography.
Henrico police Detective Edward Kopacki Jr., Richmond FBI Special Agent
Zachary Lowe Jr. and U.S. Postal Inspector Stephan Lear were honored during
a ceremony in Washington that included actress Jamie Lee Curtis and John
Walsh, host of "America's Most Wanted," among other celebrities and
dignitaries.
U.S. Sen. George Allen, R-Va., presented each of the officers with the 2001
National Exploited Children's Award, given each year to the nation's top law
enforcement officers by the National Center for Missing & Exploited
Children.
The work for which they received the award was one of five cases selected
from across the country to be honored.
The awards are presented in partnership with the Fraternal Order of Police
and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency of the U.S. Department of
Justice.
"These three police officers received a prestigious, national-level award in
recognition for the remarkable work they did in quickly solving a very
remarkable case," noted Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian R. Hood, who nominated
the officers for the award. "I think it's fair to say that all the citizens
of Richmond, and children everywhere, owe a debt of gratitude to these three
officers."
"It's clear . . . that the arrest and conviction of [the two Glen Allen men]
has resulted in there being fewer juveniles' lives being shattered out
there," added Hood, who prosecuted the men in federal court.
In addition, Hood said, information derived from the Richmond case has led
to investigations of six other men in six states. Hood declined to elaborate
because those investigations continue.
The two Glen Allen men - Phillip Prescott Uhl, 23, and Edward Ray Winters,
30 - were arrested in mid-October after an intensive six-day investigation
by Kopacki, Lowe and Lear. Authorities acted after an unnamed witness called
the FBI to report he had received an e-mail offering sex with a 12-year-old
boy for money.
Agents pretending to be the e-mail recipient eventually connected the offer
to Winters and set up a phony appointment through the Internet for sex with
the boy.
The deal included Winters taking pictures. Just before the time of the
meeting, Winters picked the boy up at his home, and law officers closed in.
They found numerous pornographic pictures of the boy on the computer in the
home shared by Winters and Uhl. Some of the photos showed Uhl having sex
with the boy.
Authorities established that Winters molested not only the 12-year-old boy
but his two brothers, ages 7 and 14.
Winters was sentenced in U.S. District Court last month to 22 years in
prison on charges of selling a child for use in the production of
pornography and sexually exploiting a minor by production of sexually
explicit material.
He is to be sentenced next month in Henrico Circuit Court on 12 counts of
child molestation. He pleaded guilty to the offenses in April.
Uhl pleaded guilty last year in federal court to exploiting a minor by
production of pornography and in Henrico to five counts of forcible sodomy
of a child.
He is scheduled to be sentenced in both courts next month.