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From Child Porn to Chinese Food…
By Jennifer 8. Lee | September 20, 2007
Today I watched my close friend, Adam, give his closing arguments in his first case as a federal prosecutor. It was a child enticement case where a 49-year-old man showed up in New York City with a condom and a camera expecting to have sex with a 13-year-old girl he met online. Only she as not 13, she was an undercover NYPD detective. But I saw her yesterday and she really does look extremely young, and must have looked younger two years ago. Even though he was from Long Island, the case was tried in federal court, which incidentally is much nicer than state court. (Even the carpets in the federal courthouse are just! They have specially decided gold and blue carpets with an emblem of stars and olive branches).
Hearing the case and watching the transcripts reminded me of the intsen research on child pornography I had done several years back while I was a tech reporter. In my reporting, I came to realize that the Internet had unleashed a tidal wave of extremely bad stuff — much of which the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was at the forefront of fighting. Digital photography meant that you didn’t have to risk having child porn developed at a professional place where it cuold be seen by a clerk or know how to develop your own photos anymore.
So originally, when book agents called me up and asked if I ever thought of writing a book, I would start talking about child porn, and what a massive unknown problem it was and how someone should do a book on it. Then the agents would stop me and say, Hm…what about something less dark?
Less dark? That is how we ended up on Chinese food.
The man was convicted on both counts: 1) attempt to have sex with a minor and 2) attempt to create child pornography. Jury deliberated only 3 hours. The mandatory minimum for child pornography is 15 years.
Topics: Book Musings, Chinese Food, Musings | No Comments »
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