Child Molesters Use Electronic Networks : Computer-Crime Sleuths Go Undercover

U.S. postal inspector C. M. (Cal) Comfort sits hunched over his computer screen while a supervisor peers over his shoulder. Using his personal code name, “Submariner,” he has just signed onto one of dozens of sexually oriented computer “bulletin boards.”

Comfort and his boss, John Ruberti of the Postal Inspection Service’s Chicago division, are hunting for suspected child abusers and child pornographers who are using these high-tech message centers to pursue criminal interests.

“You have to adapt to the new techniques of crime,” Ruberti said, noting that a growing number of people who exploit children sexually are using specially equipped computers to ask help from like-minded people in finding youngsters to photograph and molest.

As personal computers proliferate, so do their potential applications for crime--and the headaches they cause for law enforcement officials.

Although sexually explicit computer boards constitute the greatest challenge to law enforcement, similar message centers have facilitated other crimes as well.

Postal inspectors said a 10-year-old boy in the Midwest recently detonated a time-bomb in a rural mailbox after learning to make the device from someone who responded to his ad on a computer bulletin board devoted to scientific interests. Because of his age, and since no one was hurt, authorities brought no charges.

Violence Prone

And a violence-prone organization known as the Aryan Brotherhood Youth Movement, whose members are called “Skinheads,” established at least three electronic bulletin boards in California, West Virginia and Texas, authorities said. The organization, which the FBI keeps tabs on, reportedly has used these bulletin boards to compile a list of suspected homosexuals throughout the nation for the avowed purpose of beating them.

Law enforcement officials are determined not to let the criminals gain a technological edge. Ruberti heads a task force of U.S. postal inspectors, Illinois State Police, Chicago police and Cook County deputy sheriffs who--using computers in their arsenal of crime-fighting techniques--have arrested more than 90 people this year on charges of child molesting or trafficking in child pornography.

“We’ve had a 100% conviction record,” he said. “Teachers, professional businessmen and a computer specialist are among the violators.”

In one case, the San Jose, Calif., police, with assistance from the FBI, recently tracked down two Virginia suspects who officials said were using a computer bulletin board to try to locate a 12-year-old child to molest and then to reportedly murder on videotape.

The pair, Dean Ashley Lambey, a real estate agent, and Daniel T. Depew, a file clerk, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to kidnap an unknown male child whom authorities said they planned to use for a pornographic “snuff” film. Undercover police nabbed the two before their plot could be carried out, according to an FBI affidavit filed in court.

The investigation began when Jim Rodrigues, a San Jose police officer, signed onto a computer bulletin board system named “Chaos,” FBI agent James O. Trotter said in an affidavit unsealed in federal court in Alexandria, Va. Chaos, Trotter said, was “designed to assist people seeking contact with others interested in diverse sexual pursuits.”

Rodrigues entered a coded computer message seeking other people having a sexual interest in children, the affidavit said, and Lambey, 34, responded. Over the course of several messages through the computer network, Lambey said he liked boys between the ages of 8 and 13 and that he wished to make a sexually explicit movie, according to court records.

“Of course, by now you probably think that I’m a real nut case, but what the hey, at least I’m honest, right?” Lambey wrote in one message received by Rodrigues.

Court papers said Lambey recognized the risk of arrest for kidnaping a child and killing him. But, according to the papers, he told the officer in a telephone conversation that “I think the pleasure of doin’ it would be worth it.”

Henry E. Hudson, U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Virginia, said that detection of the bulletin board messages and other undercover work by Rodrigues and his colleagues played “a vital role in the success of this investigation.”

Child molesters and pornographers are secretive by nature, and complicating the job of tracing them through their computer messages is that the computers afford them the anonymity of code names.

In fact, Lambey, who initially shielded his identity behind a code name in conversing with Rodrigues on the computer hookup, was caught only because he chanced to give his name and phone number to Rodrigues at a later point to establish direct contact.

The unsuspecting Lambey then led undercover officers to his alleged accomplice, Depew, 28, who discussed plans to dispose of a potential victim’s body and subsequently bought a supply of muriatic acid to wash down a small corpse, court records said.

Further hampering law enforcement officials is the constitutional protection afforded users of computer bulletin boards. Federal investigators need court warrants to break into such networks to find the source of messages deposited there; to do otherwise would be akin to a warrantless wiretap.

Legal Sign-On

But law enforcement officers may legally sign onto such bulletin boards in an undercover capacity to read messages or leave some of their own, in hopes that another user will communicate with them.

In this era of personal computers, anyone can reach sexually oriented bulletin boards simply by using modems and appropriate software. Comfort, providing a demonstration recently, received this greeting on his screen: “Welcome, you have connected with Chicago’s hottest good time. . . . Have fun, meet new friends.”

A list of messages left on the public section of this board gave Comfort no clues to any potential child molesters. And he was told there were no private messages for him under his code name.

“There are hundreds of bulletin boards nationally that deal with general topics like home cooking and auto repair and about 100 that deal with sexual interests,” Ruberti said. And of these, he said, “only a small minority” contain messages suggestive of child pornography.

Unlike adult pornography, which carries some First Amendment protection, child pornography has been determined by Congress to be unlawful in itself on grounds that it makes victims of children under 18.

It is a federal crime to produce so-called “kiddie porn” commercially or to mail or ship such material across state lines--hence the interest of postal inspectors such as Comfort and Ruberti. It also is a federal violation to advertise its availability publicly or through use of a computer.

Many pedophiles, aware that an explicit computer message may lead to prosecution, have resorted to posting such ambiguous phrases as “I’m interested in the kinky or unusual” or “I’m looking for that look of innocence,” authorities say.

“Only by communicating directly with such a person through his computer code name can you find out what he means,” Comfort said.

Sen. William V. Roth Jr. (R-Del.), finding computer message boards unregulated by the Federal Communications Commission or any other agency, led a successful drive in Congress last year to crack down on computer advertising of child pornography.

The Senate Governmental Affairs permanent investigations subcommittee, of which Roth is the top-ranking Republican member, reported the existence of “an informal network of pedophiles across America and Europe who use everything from magazines and newsletters to computer data bases to solicit child prostitution and advertise illegal pornographic materials.”

Calling such messages “shocking,” Roth said “it makes no sense to outlaw the production, sale and possession of child pornography, but permit this harmful and illegal material to be advertised freely.”