It is already well underway in the courts.
Posted on 02/09/2006 6:14:17 PM PST by NormsRevenge
SAN DIEGO – A pedophile who was part of the international child pornography ring that exchanged videos and photos of themselves molesting children was sentenced Thursday to more than 467 years to life in state prison.
Paul Whitmore, a former counselor for autistic children, was convicted Nov. 30 of 51 felony charges, including committing a lewd act on a child, aggravated sexual assault on a child, posing a minor for pictures involving sexual conduct for commercial purposes and attempting to dissuade a witness from reporting a crime.
The verdicts included special allegations of bondage, sodomy, sexual penetration, oral copulation and multiple victims.
One of Whitmore's photos showed a tied-up 9-year-old drinking water out of a cat bowl, said prosecutor Jeffrey Dort.
"He used children to satisfy himself," Dort told Judge Gale Kaneshiro. "His premeditated crime is worse than the person who murders on instinct."
Whitmore's crimes included eight victims, none of whom were students at Stein Education Center in Grantville, where he worked.
The victims who were forced to testify at trial were put through hell, Dort told the judge.
He said Whitmore, 47, had shown no remorse for his crimes.
"We can only assume from that ... the worst," the prosecutor said.
Before she pronounced sentence, Kaneshiro denied Whitmore's motions for a new trial and to impose one life sentence.
The evidence presented to the jury was "graphic, shocking and overwhelming," the judge said.
Kaneshiro said the photos and videos produced by Whitmore was the most incriminating evidence to prove his guilt.
She called Whitmore a sexual abuser, child molester and pedophile who documented his sexual assaults through video and photographs.
"He is a pedophile by self examination and self declaration," the judge said of Whitmore. "He is the worst that I have ever sentenced."
Whitmore acted on his sexual impulses, molesting children of both sexes, Kaneshiro said.
In denying probation on some counts, the judge said rehabilitation for the defendant was not feasible.
Kaneshiro said she imposed consecutive sentences on many of the counts because the degree of cruelty and callousness went above and beyond similar crimes of violence.
Whitmore also induced others in the pornography ring to molest children, the judge said.
Over several years, Whitmore "groomed" a number of children – including one he was a caretaker for – into a "circle of hell," in which they were molested and had their photos taken and posted on the Internet, Dort said.
The defendant's desire to have sex with children was topped only by his passion to create a library of child pornography that was distributed around the world, the prosecutor said.
Dort pulled out a pair of handcuffs, a black leather restraint and rope that Whitmore used on his young victims, calling the defendant a "monster."
"He showed porn to children in his own house," Dort told the judge. "The crime fits the punishment."
Another man, Brooke Rowland, pleaded guilty to two counts of child molestation and was sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.
Whitmore and Rowland, a 44-year-old former ad salesman from Poway, were among 25 people arrested in North America and Europe in April 2002 in connection with "Operation Hamlet."
The child porn ring focused on individuals authorities said were distributing photos and videos on the Internet of themselves molesting children as young as 3 years old in 2000 and 2001.
A watchdog group in Sweden surfing the Web identified an offender and notified police in Denmark, Dort said earlier.
More than 100 children were identified as being abused during the investigation, and 45 of them were taken out of offenders' homes, the prosecutor said.
None are.99% of molesters repeat.That is why the only treatment is a burial.
This is sick.
As someone who worked with an autistic kid for a couple of years (and is still in contact with him) let me just say this: there is no way in h*ll his mother would have let him anywhere near this guy. And second, if this perp even considered doing something like this to the kid I worked with, the only "discussion" there would be would be between me and his parents--and it would be a discussion of which of us was going to go to jail for applying some shotgun shells to a particularly relevant area of this S*B.
Good for this judge. Maybe she can run some training seminars for judges in Vermont.
Do you possess a 68? I had a 70/350 w/vinyl.
A Lobotomy might help, if it was done at the neck!
Thank you God!
And get a quick and painless death by lethal injection?
No. This one was correct. Going to prison is about PUNISHMENT. Knowing you'll be spending the rest of your days in a prison surrounded by the worst humanity has to offer will be punishment enough. In all likelihood, he'll be killed by an inmate...or he'll be forced upon by tougher, more malignant men. He'll learn what he was inflicting upon others.
The punishment was a correct one. May God have mercy on this man's soul...and if he somehow lives out the rest of his now-hellish life, may he repent and seek forgiveness.
Yeah, I do. It needs a little maintenance right now, including a new convertible top and a tune up. I'll get around to that soon. But even when it needs a little work it still runs like a beast. It's a real treat to own.
This guy will have the rest of his life on the receiving end of what he did to these kids and worse. I hear that prisoners don't like child molesters.
The Vermont judge has forgotten that prison is also to protect the public.
He probably won't last a year, and even if he does, he's going to suffer. Prisoners compete to meter out justice for guy's like this.
Why will I not be shocked when one day the ACLU and the Democratic party shout that people who "discriminate" against child molesters suffer from "Pedophile-phobia."
As a granfather or a beautiful autistic young lady, dealth is way to easy for this animal.
I predict a short stay in jail for him. He'll get a taste of his crimes - hopefully as the last experience he ever has.
Hope this POS, uh, mistakengly...finds his way into gen pop! :)
It is already well underway in the courts.
Where's the death penalty when you need it? Guess he'll get his chance to experience hell on earth in prison, like those he abused (understatement). But somehow, that still doesn't seem harsh enough.
And of course he'll go directly into the "General Population" of whatever prison they send him to. Right.?
Sure he will.
I PREDICT A PREMATURE DEATH AT THE HANDS OF ANOTHER PRISONER.
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