Internet a Molesters’ Tool, Police Warn

The recent arrest of a suspected child molester accused of using the Internet to seduce Orange County youngsters should be a wake-up call for parents, authorities said Monday.

Federal agents have investigated nearly 200 reports of computer-related molestation cases in Southern California since 1995, and more offenders are discovering the anonymity and reach of the Internet all the time, authorities said.

“An arrest here and there that we make is hardly putting a dent in the problem,” said Huntington Beach Police Det. Daryk Rowland, who investigates child exploitation cases. “Parents just have to really start paying attention. They can’t dismiss it by saying it won’t happen to their kid because, let me tell you, they are wrong.”

Rowland, who started monitoring the Internet two years ago, said he is worried that the ease of accessing child pornography and sexually explicit chat rooms has inspired more potential child molesters to roam the World Wide Web.

And children, he has found, tend to reveal more about themselves to strangers on the Internet than they likely would in person, including their feelings, fears and sexual interests.

“You could be right downstairs and your kid could be in his room, chatting with some 40-year-old man who is being very sympathetic to his problems,” Rowland said. “The Internet is a playground for these child molesters.”

With more than 10 arrests in two years, the Huntington Beach Police Department is considered one of the state’s most aggressive investigative units of sex-related crimes on the Internet.

On Saturday, Huntington Beach police arrested James Lorincz, 32, of Huntington Beach on suspicion of contacting several teenagers on the Internet and then seducing them or coercing them into sexual activity.

In February, they arrested a Washington, D.C., man on suspicion of communicating via electronic mail with a detective posing as a 13-year-old boy. The suspect was nabbed outside a Huntington Beach fast-food restaurant where he had arranged to meet the “boy.”

Last year, a Pennsylvania man was arrested after using the Internet to propose a sexual encounter with a 12-year-old boy, who in fact was a Huntington Beach police detective.

“We’ve made these types of cases a pretty high priority, frankly, because this is really scary stuff,” Police Chief Ronald E. Lowenberg said Monday. “The initial contact our kids may be having on the Internet starts out innocently enough, but it can really get out of control fast. We must do a better job of warning parents.”

Huntington Beach’s force became the first Orange County police agency to join Southern California’s Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement Team, a multi-agency task force headed by the FBI in Los Angeles that targets child exploitation on the Internet. The Orange County Sheriff’s Department assigned a detective to the SAFE team in July.

The SAFE team is modeled on an effort by FBI agents in Baltimore who chase down reports on Internet predators and use undercover agents to collect evidence through online conversations and other contacts, according to Special Agent Randy Aden.

The effort to catch and prosecute online molesters is getting increasingly difficult, though, as offenders find new ways to mask their identities in the vast thicket of the Internet.

The authority with the best hope of curtailing the threat is the parent or guardian who supervises the youthful computer user, Aden said.

But how can parents best protect their children? The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children suggests setting up rules, including having the child pledge not to give out their photo, home address, phone number or other personal information to anyone online.

Most of all, experts say, parents should take the time to learn exactly how their children use the Internet, touring the sites and services the youngster has discovered. Boundaries should be set up together, and the parent should explain why certain areas are off-limits, experts advise.

Rowland said parents can also set up filtering devices on their computers to limit their child’s access to certain areas, or to “lock up” if foul language is used. Keeping the computer in a common area of the house, such as the dining room, also helps monitor a child’s use.

Parents should also communicate with other adults to make sure their children don’t have access to objectionable Internet sites when staying at a friend’s house, he said.

“You can be doing everything you can to keep this stuff off-limits, but if your kid just goes over to Bobby’s house and is allowed to go crazy, then what?” Rowland said. “There has to be some action taken. We cannot be too careful.”