UPDATED: Highly Decorated D.A.R.E. Cop Arrested for Running an Enormous Child Porn Ring
UPDATED: IN RESPONSE TO MEMBER COMMENTS THIS OFFICER’S NAME HAS BEEN REMOVED
Another story from the “it’s not the people on the list you need to watch:
The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) program should better be called an hilarious exercise in how not to convince kids to keep away from substances the state deems illegal. As cops hopped on their high horses and had children pledge not to do drugs, the rate of drug use skyrocketed — thrusting the country into one of the worst drug epidemics in human history. The hypocrisy by the cops who pushed the D.A.R.E. program has been well-documented over the years, explaining, at least in part, as to why the program was such a failure from the start. Now, another cop who pushed kids to ‘just say no’ has been arrested and accused of disturbing criminal activity.
“XXXXX, a former longtime Beavercreek police officer, was arrested this morning on federal charges of producing, distributing, receiving, transporting and possessing child pornography,” said U.S. Attorney David M. DeVillers. “Additionally, XXXXX is charged with tampering with a witness or informant, according to the statement from the US Attorney’s office in the Southern District of Ohio.
Less than two years before this cop was arrested for running a child porn ring, Officer XXXXX received the “Law Enforcement Officer of the Year” Award. When presented with the honor, the Beavercreek police department praised him for his work with young children.
Well, look at the bright side.
If they ever let him out of prison, we will have a new activist to add to our rolls. And whatever part of his family does not turn their backs on him will also become activists.
They are always haters until they get caught. (Then they start singin’ a new tune.)
Oh how the mighty have fallen! (Boo Hoo!)
I’m usually fairly snarky in some of my comments mostly because of the frustration and anger I have on being required to register for the rest of my life.
But it’s articles like this where I wonder if there is some sort of psychological relevance to being around the activity (in this case, kids) which seems to create some type of feedback loop in the brain justifying the behavior in the end.
Certainly not everyone would be susceptible to this in the end, but I sort of equate it to someone working in the narcotics area, being around drugs all the time and having some sort of addiction after a period of time.
Or, how someone who speaks out so adamantly about homosexual lifestyle is just covering up their latent homosexuality… just as a couple of examples.
Maybe it’s not a well formed thought about the connection, but I am curious if there is some type of relationship between career/action and behavior like that.
Definitely not condoning the behavior, hopefully there are no more victims to come forward.
I forget where I heard this but I surely heard it many years ago and that is that LE agents who have to view CP as part of the cases they are working on must occasionally undergo some sort of test to make sure that viewing the evidence (the CP) hasn’t “corrupted” their morals. In other words- to make sure that they aren’t suddenly being sexually aroused by such images.
I hate to put it like this but it kind of reminds me of something that was said in the TV show “The Walking Dead”, when the CDC scientist whispers in Rick’s ear about what’s causing the dead to come back to life. Later on, one of the other characters asked Rick what the guy said to him. Rick responded that the scientist wasn’t sure but what he said was; “It’s in all of us”.
I guess instead of DAREing to keep kids off of drugs, he DARE’d kids to do something nasty on film. Sorry, I know that was kind of vulgar on my part – I’m just so fed up that I can’t help it anymore.
Definitely less! Why is it this hasn’t been broadcast on the tv news but only on fac? It seem the news has stopped showing this kund of thing to the public. Is it because most sex crimes are committed by higher priorty people!. They used to broadcast alot more than now!!. Or is it the sex crime itself is being slowed down? Maybe!!.
We all are in disgust when of our people are only accused and arrested and get media coverage, yet we do the same. IF he is convicted, then it will be a story. Or IF he is acquitted, we can question why. His name as many of ours will forever be tarnished whether guilty or not.
IF he is found guilty, we can then claim the “it’s not the people on the list you need to watch” although we all know that’s true.
Sorry for the dissent but we can’t automatically assume one is guilty until he/she is proven guilty.
I have mixed feelings about stories like these being shared. These stories show 1) that a person who has never been convicted or registered for a SO commit offense more frequently than registered citizens. But we also know that 2) that this man made a mistake that (statistically), he is not likely to repeat so I am concerned about including his name in the story.
So this cop was arrested for running a child porn ring and he still got his achievement? We continue to say that our system is broken and needs fixing. How long are we going to say this? When is it going to get fixed? Regardless, I hope this cop ends up at USP Tucson and gets 100 years. He will most likely plea a deal and get 15 years, if not less.
Definitely less! Why is it this hasn’t been broadcast on the tv news but only on fac? It seem the news has stopped showing this kund of thing to the public. Is it because most sex crimes are committed by higher priorty people!. They used to broadcast alot more than now!!. Or is it the sex crime itself is being slowed down? Maybe!!.
15 years is the mandatory minimum for just ONE of his charges. A simple google search will tell you who broadcast the story, but FAC isn’t even a source, which is why it included a link.
Hilarious. Now for the bad news. Notice at the end of the article the author’s proposed solution to these problems. Stricter laws.
As a registered citizen, I take no pleasure in this story. Our system is not design to solve problems. It’s simply filled with hate, which this man will surely experience. There will be no winners here, only losers.
Before people comment about this cop…I want everybody to know let us not judge him about his Sin but reach out to him and offer him a warm welcome to the “Club Membership” that his fellow citizens help create!
Why am I not surprised or shocked by this? Hmmmm
When I was locked up there were all sorts of people with respectable backgrounds such as doctor, teacher, pastor, and ,yes, police officer busted for CP. It’s funny that this article is reacting in somewhat of a shock to all this.
But the faces behind those computer monitors that partake in these activities are everyday people, not some stereotypical caricature in people’s imagination. Not a CSI bad guy of the week where you look at him and say, “Yeah he looks like chomo!” Most people caught with CP are more than just their charges. Alot of them have jobs, pay taxes, and have families. Some of them are even contributing members of society.
But they had hideous flaw underneath them that led to this downward spiralling and into the nets of law enforcement. Most of them get their acts together and stay out of trouble after they are released. Few don’t.
What these articles fail to do is show the humanity under all this spectacle and exaggerate their bad actions and color even their achievements with suspicion that somehow the good things were done for nefarious reasons.
So I don’t look at this article as “ha-ha! Take that hypocrite!” like I did in the beginning. I feel sorry for him. Because he will be defined by society by those actions and not the good that he has done. Just like so many of us…
Seeing a lot of sympathy here for this individual. But he may have a long road ahead when it comes to accepting responsibility.
Multiple charges of production of CP, plus other charges, that’s very serious.
Sometimes cases such as these don’t even get as far as registration or court-mandated treatment, because of the length of the prison term. Quite different from the typical FAC member who is paying the price for a long-ago decision while trying to better themselves.
The point of sharing this information is to dispel the Myth that the people on this list are the ones we need to watch out for.
In fact, it can be a teacher, coach, police officer or anybody.
Well Said FAC !!!! It is not the people on the Blacklist but those who aren’t
I recently wrote a letter to our (TX) governor and talked about this reality. I told him that they would be more likely to find individuals who prey on children working as police officers than to find any on adult sites, where no one goes to find children. Individuals who like to prey on children are going to be found in positions like this where they are blending in with good people, pretending to be doing good for others. They pretend to be good people, and they work hard at earning people’s trust, so that way no one ever questions or doubts them.
There’s no way that trained professionals are not aware of how these types of individuals really work. Still they continue to look for “child predators” on adult sites, instead of in places where there are children. 🤦🏻♀️
Here’s a good one to share, if you haven’t already:
https://thecrimereport.org/2020/03/12/predators-behind-the-badge-confronting-hidden-police-sexual-misconduct/
This one is interesting too:
https://www.bwjp.org/assets/documents/pdfs/webinars/dhhs-police-sexual-misconduct-a-national-scale-study.pdf
As a police officer he does not have to register as a so. For security purposes see statue ironic isn’t it .
Where do you see that?
In 1997 when I registered it was in the statue that law enforcement was not to be listed on internet there home address etc. Now since then I don’t know if it has been changed. look at the origanal statue under exemptions
Long time lurker, first time commenter here.
My $.02 is this: Even though it’s well documented as to the likelihood of recidivism among the overwhelming majority of us, I think it’s almost instantly disregarded because of the harsh registration requirements and restrictions themselves. What do I mean by that? When we say look, the rate of recidivism is x% and declines by y% every z years following blah, blah, blah. The powers that be just say well, looks like our scheme is working. No one knows how the percentages would play out if there weren’t these measures in place. How do you combat that mentality? Has it been studied somewhere that I just haven’t seen?
I’d point to another somewhat similar situation: Following 9/11, there was a huge power grab, due to fear and knee jerk reactions, which we are still to this day saddled with as citizens, regardless of our “duty” to register. Opponents of the Patriot Act say that it’s a terrible overreach of government that essentially spies on it’s own citizenry and that privacy is basically non-existent anymore. I’d tend to agree with that assessment, but we all know what opinions resemble :). Proponents of the Patriot Act say look, there hasn’t been any new event akin to 9/11, so we must keep it to prevent further attacks. How do you prove the negative? Who’s can say that they’ve really stopped anything of the magnitude of 9/11? Were there any plans to do that again that have been thwarted, or is the lack of activity due to the time needed to dream up some dastardly deed of that proportion?
I, like most or all of you, had to attend sex offender counseling as part of my supervised release. What a fiasco. I recall nearly being ejected from the program because I wouldn’t agree that viewing CP was as bad or worse than Lewd and Lascivious on a minor. In my mind, while the two are obviously not acceptable, the degree of severity stands out boldly. I have read studies that agree with my opinion, but I am sure there are others to the contrary. I don’t know the accused in this story, and so I can only make assumptions based on past experience. I personally have only ever met a handful of cops that I felt were genuinely interested in helping people at all. The majority seem like the kid who had his lunch money taken at school and decided they’d make up for it by being a tool to everyone they can because they now have a badge and gun. Mike Chitwood and Grady Judd come to mind when I say that. Would I relish seeing either of them or several others wrapped up in one of their entrapment style operations? Sure, I would. But in reality, that does nothing to further my/our cause. What we truly need is for the unregistered public to take notice and stop this non-sense. Stop it by not being lured into it themselves, more than anything else. If the operations run by the aforementioned weren’t able to make arrests, they’d stop. /end rant
GB,
“ When we say look, the rate of recidivism is x% and declines by y% every z years following blah, blah, blah. The powers that be just say well, looks like our scheme is working. No one knows how the percentages would play out if there weren’t these measures in place. How do you combat that mentality? Has it been studied somewhere that I just haven’t seen?”
It’s like I keep saying; Long before there was a sex offender registry, there were people living a normal life after incarceration/probation and there were none of these stipulations. So what we have to do is get the recidivism numbers from BEFORE (1994) all this and if they were just as low as now, that should be enough to fight to abolish this crap. Then we can say to them “No, your scheme has NOT been working because nothing has changed before or after it was implemented”.
They know it I mean come on. The thing is it’s additional punishment, it’s money into the system, it provides in my opinion someone for the public to hate that is politically correct as well as makes the police and state, and attorneys look like good people. I’m sure it’s stopped some crime but right now they are punishing the life out of us on assumption in order to protect the public so now it’s the states duty to protect the public? Like aren’t people supposed to protect their own family’s? If this was the case why wouldn’t their just be a felony registry for the public? I have had problems from violating the registry rules and a lot older now it’s plain as day there is a silent code in the courtroom when it comes to defending sex offenders or even previous offenders. They act like your on trial from the first charge even adding points from your prior so automatically you score out to prison again and take a shit deal. I don’t think adding these points is right considering there is no way you can get this charge in its original form scoring out to less than 10 points on the technical slip up.
99 percent of this should be written warnings and fines. Come on jail time cause you forgot something while the information filed, police report all contain multiple errors.
Pre-1994, pre-registry recidivism figures are the same. The registry had no effect and did not “work.”
Jacob, can you guide me in the direction where I can find some research to back that up? Thanks.
Check out
https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/rsorp94.pdf
(I get no credit for this link, as I stole it from FAC).
…and if that’s not the best one and we need to keep digging, let me know. Multiple times I have seen secondary sources cite studies showing equal recidivism rates pre-registry as post-registry, and it’s important to overcome the misguided perception that registries “work.”
GB,
There are several studies recidivism studies evaluating the effectiveness of Megan’s Law. Every single one of them have concluded it does nothing to prevent sex crime in general or recidivism in particular. A couple pointed out that the registry actually increases recidivism among registrants, in that the overwhelming majority of registrant arrest are for status crime (I.e., SO-specific parole/probation or registry offenses).
Registry supporters are so as a matter of faith. Usually used in the religious context, faith is a belief in something despite the absence of proof or proof to the contrary. There are mountains of proof showing the registry’s ineffectiveness toward its (supposed) intended purposes and questionable (to say the least) legality of imposing them. Yet there is not one single thing supporting the registry beyond the empty claims of safety it supposedly provides, mostly because contrary to popular opinion, nearly all registrants (particularly those that have served prison time) aren’t inclined to commit any other offenses, sexual or otherwise.
Basically, we are challenging people’s faith. Registry supporters believe it’s vital to their safety due to the misinformation that’s been crammed down their throats for the majority of their lives. Frankly, I think the only way that faith in the registry will be shaken is when individuals are personally affected by it, be it themselves or a close friend or family member; many non-registered anti-registry activists didn’t become such until that happened.
As more registrants are added and non-punitive (snicker) restrictions and obligations are imposed, more lives are negatively affected. Eventually, the value of picking on registrants for our elected failed-lawyers-turned-thieves will diminish. But in the meantime, the fight against the registry must be kept up. As people change their minds, they find it easier to join a movement than it is to start one.
I would feel better for him if he didn’t have that position of authority. Many years back, the head of HSI’s computer crimes or CP investigation division was arrested for CP. Joe Blow with DARE garners more sympathy from me then someone hypocritically enforcing CP possession.
Maybe part of the hate stems from the possible injustice imposed on us; while in prison, I noticed that many inmates held a more demanding form of justice than the chaos that televison portrays.
Some states chalk up CP possession and distribution (like if one left sharing on in a p2p network) as a sexually VIOLENT crime.
I wonder whether or not this guy ever took part in any of those ICAC stings as an officer. If so, I would think that’s probably where he got the images and videos he was charged for having. Could the argument be made that those task forces make child predators out of their own officers?
Was this arrest the product of one of those stings? Guessing not – no indications of the usual high-5’s and back-patting of the team that tracked and arrested him. So if not, why not do more of these than the current schemes done now to make supposed child predators out of people who originally sought adult porn and/or contact? I still find it very unlikely that child predators look for new victims in adult porn sites and chat rooms.
Of course, if it was one of those stings, this guy is just another idiot. More so in that he should have known full well what they look like and how they operate more than anyone else previously stung, regardless of whether or not he ever took part in one.
Typical cop bullshit. Do as I say, not as I do .
To me, the charge of producing CP usually means having sex with minors and filming it. Judging by the terms used in the article, “unspeakable” and “disgusting,” that seems to be case here. This man will never get out of prison alive so putting him on the registry is irrelevant.
Not sure how it
Is today, but 20 years ago, I was told that I order to be whacked for CP by the Feds, the porn I question actually had to be “real” CP and not stuff like nudist camp pics and such. Now we know that charges can sound worse than the offense actually is, but the production charge is worrisome. Doesn’t sound like this guy was just trading old stuff off the internet. But, you never know. They could have gotten him for compiling pics into a “new” form or something like that.