Posted on 06/19/2002 7:03:50 PM PDT by sinkspur
A decade ago, police used to find painstakingly clipped pictures of children in underwear ads pasted into homemade scrapbooks by men trying to satisfy their perverse sexual interests.
Now child molesters post photos online that show their underage victims in the act, feeding collectors who swap thousands of illegal images over the Internet.
The World Wide Web has sparked an explosion of child pornography, giving quick and easy access to volumes of hard-core images.
"Now with a touch of a button, you can access thousands of pictures," said Leigh Ann Retelsdorf, who prosecutes sex crimes for Douglas County. "I'm sure that people who never would have gone to the trouble to collect before look at it now."
The Rev. Robert Allgaier is scheduled for trial Tuesday in Madison County on a charge of attempted possession of child pornography. Prosecutors allege he devoted hours every week to looking at online child pornography.
Possessing child porn is a misdemeanor in Nebraska and Iowa. The charge jumps to a felony for people who make or distribute child porn, which includes e-mailing images.
When the priest was charged, Archbishop Elden Curtiss made a point of noting that Allgaier wasn't accused of abusing children. Many people shrug their shoulders over child porn, Retelsdorf said. Most don't realize how explicit the images are and how easy they are to get.
That nonchalance rankles investigators who have to look at every pornographic picture and video stored on suspects' computers - as many as 1,000 images for one case.
The photos aren't simply naked preteens posed like Playboy playmates.
They are X-rated close-up of adults having every variation of sex with children as young as infants.
"The Internet is like a smorgasbord for pornography. You can get whatever you want," said Mario Scalora, a University of Nebraska-Lincoln psychologist who treats sex offenders.
Some pictures turn the stomachs of even seasoned detectives.
Investigators often see a popular set of photos of a father raping his 7-year-old daughter vaginally, orally and anally.
In one picture, a tear rolls down the girl's cheek.
"It rips your heart out every time you see it," said Sgt. Scott Christensen, who heads the Nebraska State Patrol's Internet Crimes Against Children unit.
Officers look at every picture on the rare chance they can identify a victim or perpetrator. But they can look at only so many photos in one sitting, Omaha Police Detective Steve Henthorn said.
"You have to take breaks, you have to stop," said Henthorn, who has been investigating sex crimes for 13 years.
Years ago, collectors frequently created personal scrapbooks of regular photos of children snipped from magazines, catalogs and newspapers. They could order pornographic images by mail, but networking to find others with the same interest was difficult.
Now, in seconds, they can find Internet chat rooms and news groups devoted to sex with children. They can join listservs that ship dozens of photos via e-mail in a half-hour.
"I was surprised people were so nonchalant about trading," Christensen said. "Hold on - 'you've got mail' - and there's a picture of a naked guy with an erection."
People who look at child porn range from curiosity seekers who check out a few pictures, to adult porn aficionados dabbling in a new area, to die-hard child-porn collectors who run computer programs catering to their preferences, according to Scalora and Omaha FBI agent Scott McMillion.
Investigators traced one computer program to a 17-year-old boy in west Omaha, court documents show. The ad said: "I am serving pre-teen girls only UNDER 12 or be banned."
The fileserver was set up so users who sent one child-porn image got another one in exchange, from an archive of 748 pictures and videos.
Among the tamer names are: kidorgy, girlwithdaddy, girlrape, babyanal, boy/mom, aagh-ithurts.
By the time investigators got a tip about it, they were the 388th to tap the site.
Finding online communities makes offenders feel normal.
"They tell them they're not sick or deviant," Henthorn said. "They begin to feel normal. The pictures fuel their desires. They feel these children want this and crave this."
Psychologists and law enforcement officials don't have a handle on how many people who look at child porn also molest children, said McMillion, who coordinates the FBI's Crimes Against Children unit for Nebraska and Iowa.
Some never act on their fantasies. Others send child porn by e-mail to entice potential victims.
An Army recruiter in Grand Island has been charged with sending explicit photos while trying to persuade a teen-age boy to pose nude.
"They'll say, 'See, it's OK. It's normal for a 13-year-old girl to have sex with a 40-year-old man. Here's eight pictures of it,'" Christensen said.
Some molesters want to document their own deviance, creating lasting images of the moment and the victim at the age they prefer.
More homemade child porn has appeared as digital cameras eliminate the need to commercially process photos while providing high-quality images, investigators say.
Webcams can be used to show sex acts live on the Internet.
"It's instant. It's automatic - boom, it's right on the Web," McMillion said. "And I can't get it back."
An Omaha family had been using a Webcam to communicate with a family from Brazil. The father was floored when he stumbled upon his 6-year-old daughter watching a man masturbating through the camera, Henthorn said.
Some use Webcams to prey on the impulsiveness of teen-agers, coaxing them to expose themselves for the camera, Christensen said.
In a few instances nationally, molesters used instant messaging to take requests from collectors while they have children they can victimize and photograph on the spot, McMillion said.
The technology has become so commonplace, it's become a routine line of questioning during investigations into child sex abuse.
"That's one of the questions we ask now," Henthorn said. "Did they use a computer?"
Only after a kindergarten teacher went to the cops eight months after reporting the priest to Curtiss, did the incident come to light.
I sometimes suspect that the continual posting of the ATTEMPT by this priest Allgaeir is a misguided attempt at the impossible: left populism. Do I think that Allgaeir is a sick, twisted perverted SOB in a collar? You bet. If it were constitutional, would I jail him? You bet and give him Big Bubba as his new "partner," as well. Do I think that a priest who is not only homosexual but fixated on kiddies ought to be summarily defrocked as a priest and cast into outer darkness. You betcha. The homosexuality alone would suffice and has been doubled and redoubled by his interest in kids. Do I bet that Fr. Allgaeir is your run-of-the-mill AmChurch left louse? Absolutely.
As to Allgaeir being out: Out of jail? Out of the closet? Out of the priesthood? Out of circulation?
Do I think that the insubordinate first grade teacher who, with total lack of credibility, reported what she claimed were second-hand reports (i.e., hearsay generally inadmissible) from her 6-year-olds that the pervo priest (who LATER confessed his attempt) that Allgaeir "attempted" unsuccessfully to download kiddie porn on his computer (this requires more sophistication as to kiddie porn and as to computers and as to what did not show up on screen than most 6-year-olds are likely to have) ought to have been fired for making demands on Archbishop Curtiss, one of the few actually Catholic archbishops in the United States? Now and forever. She is an insubordinate liar on the evidence. Try, she had a totally unrelated run-in with the priest, had heard rumors as to his perverted interests, took a shot and claimed that this sophisticated misbehavior was reported to her by the 6-year-olds (her Achilles' heel), that she was acting for the children, for the children (who, of course, are not to be identified although they are allegedly the actual witnesses whom Allgaier has a right to demand testify against him so that they may be cross-examined) and that, when she did not get her frustrated feminist way, then started making demands, no less, on Archbishop Elden Curtiss who simply requested her resignation under all the circumstances.
I may not be making myself popular by beating up on Ms. Grundy especially in light of the LATER confession of the pervo priest, but truth is still truth; she still appears to be a liar and an insubordinate one at that and I still hope that Curtiss fires her as an example to others.
Her attempt to extort the archbishop to put his authority in service to her demands makes her an unfit example to the children negligently placed in her care as a teacher. If it turns out that Fr. Allgaeir has been caught on videotape raping and murdering children (a habit of some Omaha authorities not at all connected to the Archdiocese but bipartisan and who make anything reported out of Boston look tame) or forcing the children to murder one another after raping one another at gunpoint. There is a book by a former state senator called the Franklin County coverup. He investigated this mess with two colleagues and then left public life with them when they realized that they would not be able to end the problem and were at substantial personal risk.
If you wonder why I think this Allgaeir matter is small potatoes, that is why. Elden Curtiss is a hero for taking the Omaha Archdiocese in the first place. His is the only judgment I respect in the Omaha area. If he is not perfect, I can live with it. Heresy will not improve this situation. Tolerance of homosexuals and other perverts in the priesthood will not improve this situation. Kumbaya will not improve this situation. Nor pink palaces nor women priests nor married priests nor the hilarious notion that further left degeneration or democracy in the pews or Ms. Grundy having authority over her archbishop and obtaining it via falsehood in the guise of hearsay.
Purge, purge some more, purge still more. Thoroughly investigate the cesspool of modernism that the the AmChurch decades have created. Obey the directions of Pope St. Pius X of 95 years ago in Pascendi Dominici Gregis. Never rest until every last one is purged and lay effective traps for anyone coming in the future.
Read Goodbye, Good Men rather than the NCR and understand that a much better future is coming to destroy thirty plus years of largely unmitigated evil posing as Catholicism in many American jurisdictions.
And,if the business were such that details of the business could result in irreparable harm if accusations were made without substance would that not require someone expert and knowledgable of the business and the staff to assure as little damage as possible was done?
Enquiring minds want to know.
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