41 CHARGED WITH SHARING CHILD-PORN VIDEOS ; Firefighter, Youth Referee Among Suspects
By ELISE YOUNG, STAFF WRITER
Detectives are scouring New Jersey for more suspects in a child- pornography investigation that has led to 41 arrests, including 15 in North Jersey, authorities said Thursday.
“I can tell you we’re coming for you tomorrow, we’re coming for you next week, next month,” state police Maj. James Fallon said at a news conference at state police headquarters.
The evidence seized contained some of the most horrific instances of sexual abuse ever seen by state police detectives, Attorney General Anne Milgram said.
“The images that were involved were videos two to 15 minutes long,” Milgram said. Some depicted what she called “graphic rape” of children believed to be 4 to 9 years old.
Investigators would not say whether any of the exploited children were from New Jersey or whether any of the images were made here. The victims who have been identified now are safe, they said.
The sweeps began Sept. 24, and the latest suspects were taken into custody Thursday.
Among those charged were four juveniles, one of them a 16-year- old student from Ridgewood. Another suspect, a 24-year-old retail worker from Clifton, maintained a MySpace page that identified him as a guitarist in a band called Lowbrow. The one woman charged was a 44-year-old unemployed resident of the Pompton Plains section of Pequannock.
The suspects elsewhere included a referee of high school girls volleyball, a volunteer firefighter, a medical technician and a security guard. Authorities said they were checking all names against the New Jersey registry of convicted sex offenders.
Milgram said the suspects participated in a “peer-to-peer” file- sharing network, communicating via Internet connections. State police detectives traced the files’ electronic paths using “digital fingerprints” left by each user’s computer.
Seventeen of the suspects had personal information posted to MySpace, Facebook and other Internet networking sites, although they did not appear to use those accounts to share pornography, Milgram said.
Milgram’s office last week asked a number of such networking sites to include a “Report Abuse!” icon for legitimate users mostly teenagers and young adults to submit details of unwanted contact, including sexual overtures. A half-dozen sites have agreed to join that system, but MySpace and Facebook have not responded, Milgram said Thursday.
Milgram would not divulge any information about the exploited youngsters. She suggested that some of the children were from this country and some possibly from beyond the United States.
“I think for me to publicly release information … is to victimize them again,” Milgram said.
Milgram said that any children whom detectives did identify, with help from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, have been moved to safety.
The suspects came from 15 New Jersey counties and ranged in age from a 14-year-old student from Camden County to a 71-year-old retiree from Gloucester County.
Each of the 41 people arrested was charged with possession of child pornography; 22 also were charged with distribution. If convicted, they face 18 months to 10 years in prison, authorities said.
By late Thursday afternoon, 30 of the suspects had been processed in municipal courts. About half had posted bail or been released on their own recognizance, according to the state police. Bail ranged from $10,000 to $75,000.
The three-month Operation Silent Shield involved the state police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and dozens of county and municipal police agencies.
In North Jersey, the suspects lived in four counties. According to the state police, they were:
* Bergen County: Unnamed male, 16, student, of Ridgewood; Anthony Pecchio, 42, unemployed, of Dumont.
* Passaic County: Robert Callaghan, 41, elevator repairman, of Clifton; David J. Pavoni, 24, retail worker, of Clifton; Kevin Scully, 19, car salesman, of North Haledon; Evan Smith, 18, unemployed, of Little Falls; Glen Colletti, 49, unemployed, of Bloomingdale.
* Morris County: Joan Lamb, 44, unemployed, of Pompton Plains; Albert Comacho, 43, construction worker, of Pompton Plains; William G. Evans, 32, retail worker, of Rockaway; unnamed male, 16, student, of Randolph; Richard Lyons 4th, 20, quality assurance specialist, of Budd Lake.
* Hudson County: Luis Torres, 23, unemployed laborer, of Bayonne; Nelson Reyes, 41, security guard, of Union City.
* Sussex County: Sean Turner, 19, retail worker, of Vernon Township.
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E-mail: younge@northjersey.com
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(c) 2007 Record, The; Bergen County, N.J.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.