Dozens charged in child pornography case in NYC area.

• Author: Hays, Tom
• Position: News

Byline: Tom Hays

NEW YORK -- Seemingly respectable members of the mainstream -- a police officer, a paramedic, a rabbi, an airline pilot, an architect, a Boy Scout leader -- were caught using the Internet to collect and trade child pornography, federal officials said Wednesday.

The six were among 70 New York City-area men and one woman charged as the result of a five-week investigation by the Homeland Security Investigations arm of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Some of the defendants, using search terms like ''real child rape'' and ''family sex,'' had downloaded thousands of disturbing images on their computers inside suburban homes they shared with their families. The lone woman was accused of allowing another suspect to videotape her son.

Federal and state officials who announced the arrests on Wednesday called it one of the largest local roundups ever of people who seek to anonymously share the porn online -- and a stark reminder that they come from all walks of life.

''This operation puts the lie to the classic, stereotypical profile that child predators are nothing more than unemployed drifters,'' said James Hayes, head of ICE's New York office.

Authorities say an alarming number of the defendants held positions of trust that gave them access to young children. The Boy Scout leader also coached a youth baseball team. The rabbi home-schooled his children and others. Another person used hidden cameras to secretly film his children's friends.

The operation was meant to send a message to producers and consumers of child porn ''that they are going to be identified, that they are going to be found,'' Hayes said. ''Those people need to look themselves in the mirror and do whatever they need to do to stop this activity.''

Authorities say advances in technology and computer capacity have allowed child-porn collectors to easily amass vast troves of images and to exchange files with each other directly. The New...