New York—Criminal charges were filed against 26 individuals throughout Manhattan for possession of videos and images depicting sexual abuse of children, according to Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance on Tuesday at the Manhattan DA’s office.
“These defendants stockpiled images of the brutal rapes and sexual assaults of tens of thousands of real children,” Vance said. “The defendants in these cases traded images of child sexual assault the way others trade baseball cards. They were curators of their collections who carefully labeled, sorted, and shared their cache with others.”
The charges are the result of a five-month investigation headed by the Manhattan DA’s Office of Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau, working with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations’ Child Exploitation Group.
Vance says it’s inaccurate to call these images “pornography.”
“These are babies, these are toddlers, and children … exploited by adults on camera,” Vance said. “Contained in the images are real crimes committed against real children. To create an image, there is a sexual assault.”
In a 2009 study released by the Journal of Family Violence, out of 155 individuals convicted of possessing such images, 85 percent admitted to at least one instance of child molestation.
James Hayes Jr., the ICE Homeland Security Investigations agent in charge, said that in most cases the abusers of the children identified in the images have already been convicted and have no relation to the 26 individuals arrested.
The Manhattan DA office is also working together with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), providing them with information and images obtained so the children depicted can be identified and located.
“Over the last nine years, over 3,500 children have been identified by law enforcement around the world, who have been featured in these images and videos,” said Michelle Collins, the vice president of NCMEC. “And what we’ve learned about these children and the adults who are producing these videos is that in most cases, it’s an adult who’s in a position of trust in the child’s life who are abusing them and taking the photographs.”
Vance says this is the end of phase one, and now the DA’s office is working on convicting these individuals for Class D and E felonies.
“Their professions are as diverse as our city; from accountant to truck driver, banker to handyman, Harvard-educated lawyer to bartender,” Vance said.
They range in age from 18 to 63 and vary vastly in occupations, with some working closely with children on a daily basis.
One of the defendants, Joshua Ruiz, 32, worked as a substitute teacher for NYC public schools and a piano teacher. He allegedly had engaged in online discussions about luring children for the purpose of sexual assault.
The Class D and E felonies carry a maximum sentence of two and a third to seven years in prison, and it is possible that some of the defendants may not receive a prison sentence at all.
“While some of the judges have the digression to sentence consecutive terms for possessing multiple images, but judges may also give the minimum sentence, which does not require serving any time in prison,” Vance said. “In that vein, I’d like to point out one of the weaknesses in our state law. Unlike in the federal system, where a person who distributes or possesses a large quantity of images may be punished more severely than a person who possesses a small number, New York state law provides the same punishment for someone with thousands of images as someone with one image.”
The Manhattan DA’s office will ask officials in Albany to amend the state laws to reflect different levels of punishment.
These cases are typically brought to the federal level, and Hayes says the cooperation of the Manhattan DA office and ICE has allowed the team to make arrests within the local area quicker, allowing them to do more.
“These defendants stockpiled images of the brutal rapes and sexual assaults of tens of thousands of real children,” Vance said. “The defendants in these cases traded images of child sexual assault the way others trade baseball cards. They were curators of their collections who carefully labeled, sorted, and shared their cache with others.”
The charges are the result of a five-month investigation headed by the Manhattan DA’s Office of Cybercrime and Identity Theft Bureau, working with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations’ Child Exploitation Group.
Vance says it’s inaccurate to call these images “pornography.”
“These are babies, these are toddlers, and children … exploited by adults on camera,” Vance said. “Contained in the images are real crimes committed against real children. To create an image, there is a sexual assault.”
In a 2009 study released by the Journal of Family Violence, out of 155 individuals convicted of possessing such images, 85 percent admitted to at least one instance of child molestation.
James Hayes Jr., the ICE Homeland Security Investigations agent in charge, said that in most cases the abusers of the children identified in the images have already been convicted and have no relation to the 26 individuals arrested.
The Manhattan DA office is also working together with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), providing them with information and images obtained so the children depicted can be identified and located.
“Over the last nine years, over 3,500 children have been identified by law enforcement around the world, who have been featured in these images and videos,” said Michelle Collins, the vice president of NCMEC. “And what we’ve learned about these children and the adults who are producing these videos is that in most cases, it’s an adult who’s in a position of trust in the child’s life who are abusing them and taking the photographs.”
Vance says this is the end of phase one, and now the DA’s office is working on convicting these individuals for Class D and E felonies.
“Their professions are as diverse as our city; from accountant to truck driver, banker to handyman, Harvard-educated lawyer to bartender,” Vance said.
They range in age from 18 to 63 and vary vastly in occupations, with some working closely with children on a daily basis.
One of the defendants, Joshua Ruiz, 32, worked as a substitute teacher for NYC public schools and a piano teacher. He allegedly had engaged in online discussions about luring children for the purpose of sexual assault.
The Class D and E felonies carry a maximum sentence of two and a third to seven years in prison, and it is possible that some of the defendants may not receive a prison sentence at all.
“While some of the judges have the digression to sentence consecutive terms for possessing multiple images, but judges may also give the minimum sentence, which does not require serving any time in prison,” Vance said. “In that vein, I’d like to point out one of the weaknesses in our state law. Unlike in the federal system, where a person who distributes or possesses a large quantity of images may be punished more severely than a person who possesses a small number, New York state law provides the same punishment for someone with thousands of images as someone with one image.”
The Manhattan DA’s office will ask officials in Albany to amend the state laws to reflect different levels of punishment.
These cases are typically brought to the federal level, and Hayes says the cooperation of the Manhattan DA office and ICE has allowed the team to make arrests within the local area quicker, allowing them to do more.
