As I've said before, the Dark Web is real, not made up by Hollywood for movies. Sadly, nothing good happens on the Dark Web. If I'm mistaken, please tell me something good is happening there.
I've shared true-crime cases about child predators before, but when the predator is someone who works with children, it makes me even more disgusted than the run-of-the-mill creep.
There couldn't possibly be a good reason for a Deputy Director of the Department of Juvenile Justice to be on the dark web, could there?
An undercover FBI agent working in the Project Safe Childhood Unit placed a fake ad on Craigslist, posing as the father of a child named Becky. He stated his daughter was new to the area and needed a babysitter to help her “get some energy out,” a common phrase used in child exploitation.
The Deputy Director, who had been with the State Division of Juvenile Justice for 25 years, responded to the ad and engaged in conversations about the exploitation of Becky for one year until the FBI had enough evidence to make an arrest.
A search of his home uncovered a disappointing amount of photos with children engaged in sexual exploitation. After his arrest, he pleaded guilty to one count of sexual exploitation of a child. A federal judge sentenced him to four years in prison, followed by 10 years of supervised release.
The judgment statement didn’t include that he’d be placed on a sex offender registry, so I looked him up. He wasn’t on the state or national registry. Possibly the registry will be updated to include him once he’s released from prison.
At the sentencing, the judge said,
“All of us in this society are accountable to the law.”
Remember to email me if you know of a true-crime you think would be good in a mystery/thriller novel. I'll research it and possibly share along with use it in one of my novels.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Alaska's News Source, Anchorage Daily News