When Senator Lamar Alexander’s (R TN) Chief of Staff, Ryan Loskarn, was arrested, last year, for trading in the rape and torture of children, aka child pornography, not one journalist provided context to the story. The media reported Loskarn’s arrest, and subsequent suicide pending trial, as if it were a one-off event. As if, no other high-level government employees were being arrested on child porn charges.

So, I suppose I should be thrilled to see that both Paul Farrell, the Breaking News Editor for Heavy, and Shane Harris, Sr. Intelligence and National Security Correspondent for The Daily Beast and New America Foundation Fellow, tried to provide context to the State Department’s Director of Counterterrorism, Daniel Rosen’s arrest, 26 February 2015, on charges of computer solicit of a child under 15 years old for sex/sodomy.

Farrell reported Rosen’s arrest was “the Second Child Sex Scandal to Hit D.C. in 12 Months.” Harris said Rosen’s arrest marks the “3rd U.S. Official Hit With Child Sex and Porn Charges.”

At least Paul and Shane poked their heads up and said something like: Hang on. Seems to me I’ve heard this story before. Haven’t there been other recent arrests of high level government officials on child sex abuse charges? Nonetheless, both are far off the mark. A simple Google or Twitter search reveals far more than two or three government officials arrested on similar charges.

Research 101

As I have been documenting, for years now, by all accounts there is both a national child porn crisis and, within that, a crisis of American federal and state employees engaged in child porn. In what appears to be epidemic numbers men are down-loading child porn often on their work computers at The Pentagon, The Department of Homeland Security (DHS), The Department of Justice (DOJ), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), The Department of Transportation (DOT), The Transportation Security Agency (TSA), The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) not to mention state-level police departments from Maine to California.

Maine’s Governor, Paul LePage, has recognized this crisis by issuing the first, to my knowledge, of its kind Executive Order, on 20 February 2015, prohibiting Maine state employees from accessing pornographic or sexually explicit material on both state computers or devices even when they were off-duty on personal time.

North Carolina’s Congressman, Mark Meadows (R) also recognizes the scope of the crisis and put forward the Eliminating Pornography from Agencies Act. This law, if passed, would stop federal employees from accessing, watching or sharing pornography on government-issued computers and devices. Congressman Meadows introduced this 18 September 2014. To date, he has not one co-sponsor. Not one other member of Congress cares about this issue? Apparently not.

Other Recent Arrests of Government Employees

Because the Department of Justice is not collecting data on child porn arrests, no one knows how many government employees have been arrested on child porn related charges, much less how many are engaged in the child porn industry who have yet to be caught.

The arrests listed here are, therefore, an incomplete data-set, gathered from the most rudimentary search method: simple Google and Twitter searches. On my other Medium postings I have listed recent arrests of police and military. So many police chiefs, for example, are being arrested for trading in brutal child rape and torture, I had to create a separate section.

From the record of the following arrests alone, we can speculate, child porn within our government agencies has reached crisis level.

A Few Highlights

• Acting Director of Cyber Security at the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Timothy DeFoggi, age 56, was sentenced, January 2015, to 25 years in federal prison for “participating in a child pornography ring that sources say was so depraved, it even shocked veteran investigators.” DeFoggi was a registered user of an on-line child rape and torture, aka child porn, trading site. DeFoggi “expressed an interest in the violent rape and murder of children. DeFoggi suggested meeting one member in person to fulfill their mutual fantasies to violently rape and murder children.”

• Former Undersecretary of the Navy, 70 year old James Daniel Howard, arrested on child porn possession and reproduction charges in 2013. Howard had served as special assistant to President Ronald Reagan. He plead guilty to ten child porn counts and served only seven months in jail.

• Joint Strike Fighter Program Navy officer, Bruce Babchyck, arrested in 2014 for downloading “hundreds of gigabytes” of young girls and bestiality on government computers. He received a one year sentence.

• Anthony Mangione, 50 year old Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for South Florida, was arrested on “extreme child abuse” charges on 28 September 2011. He was sentenced, November 2012, to nearly six years in prison. Mangione is a 1982 graduate of the University of Maine Orono (UMO) where former Senior Child Protection Services (CPS) Cynthia Wellman claimed, at the time, CPS was operating a child sex ring, on campus, with UMO’s involvement. “Little is known about Mangione’s time at UMaine. Originally from Rhode Island, he arrived in Orono in August 1978.”

• David Bourque, formerly the 51 year old Police Captain of Granby, Connecticut, was sentenced to ten years for child porn possession and distribution. He had more than 328,528 images and 4,000 videos on his police department computer including “sadistic and violent acts” against infants and toddlers. His “collection” was organized into more than 300 sub-folders named “photos — babies — men” and “6–10yo boys pics.” In this excerpt Bourque is D for defendant.

David Bourque’s Criminal Complaint

Prosecutors said the images were “extremely disturbing; some are especially horrific” including: (1) a boy between 1 and 3 years old being raped by an adult male penis in the child’s anus, (2) a boy between 3 and 6 years old with a “penis of what appears to be an adult male pressed against the child’s anus” and (3) a child, less than a year old, “performing oral sex on an adult male.” Bourque showed “callous disregard” for the children being abused telling people to “enjoy” themselves and “have fun.” Samples of his on-line chats include extensive discussions of rape and bondage of children. Bourque was a decorated officer with more than 31 years in law enforcement.

• Army prosecutor and judge advocate, Daniel Wollverton, father of two, convicted in 2011 for infant sodomy and possession of over 30,000 images and 1,000 videos of brutal child sex abuse including that of a three month old infant.

• Maine Assistant Attorney General, 52 year old James Cameron, was sentenced to just over 15 years in federal prison, December 2014, for seven counts of child porn possession, receipt and transmission. Cameron, widely recognized as Maine’s “top drug prosecutor,” had been trading in PTHC - pre-teen hard core. Images/videos that investigators seized included “images depicted prepubescent children, sadistic and other violent conduct.”

• Army Colonel, 55 year old Robert Joel Rice, a war game developer at Army War College, was charged with 130 child porn counts. He had more than 30,000 images/videos of child sex abuse when his wife discovered the files and notified local police. The Army War College had continued to employ Rice, and allow him supervised access to Army computers, while on bail pending trial. Col. Rice had been scheduled for a July 2013 arraignment; however, Rice’s federal hearing was delayed until February 2015. Rice’s preliminary county hearing had been set for April 2013.

• David O’Brien, America’s chief scientist responsible for monitoring global nuclear activity at Patrick Air Force Base’s Technical Applications Center, which operates our Atomic Energy Detection System, was arrested May 2013 and charged with ten counts of child porn possession and distribution.

O’Brien had a large child porn collection on his home and Air Force computers. On 17 October 2014 he was sentenced to five years in federal prison in exchange for a guilty plea to one child porn count. O’Brien had download videos of the sex abuse of children as young as three years old. He had taken pictures of his granddaughter and placed images of her head over images of children being sexually abused. He also had pictures of Air Force employees transposed over sex abuse images.

US Department of State

• Carl Carey, a 54 year Senior Project Manager in Information Technology (IT) at the US State Department, was arrested on ten counts of child porn possession, April 2012, by the Fairfax County Police.

• Gons Nachman, a 42 year old former US diplomat “admitted taping his sexual encounters with teenage girls while stationed in Brazil and the Congo” was sentenced, August 2008, to 20 years in prison. Nachman also plead guilty to child porn possession. One of his videos was titled “Congo 2004 Sexual Adventures.” His law degree is from the University of Pennsylvania, where he was president of the Naturist Student Association and “led demonstrations involving public nudity in 1995.”

• James Cafferty, 45 year old Special Agent with the US State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, pleaded guilty, 5 January 2012, to child porn charges and was sentenced, 26 April 2012, to 7 years in federal prison. Upon his arrest he had more than 30,000 images of child sex abuse. He “had shipped computer equipment containing many of those images from London to the United States when he returned home from his last official government assignment.”

• Timothy Towell, 75 year old former US Ambassador to Paraguay, was charged with “sex crimes” against an 18 year old in 2009.

• Howard Gutman, former US Ambassador to Belgium was accused of “routinely… soliciting sexual favors from both prostitutes and minor children” according to an Office Inspector General (OIG) investigation. Aurelia Fedenisn, a now former OIG investigator said her unit had found widespread evidence of “sex and drug scandals” but “were told not to look into it.” Fedenisn said “investigations into the allegations were called off by senior officials to avoid political embarrassment.”

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

• Andrew Warren, a 42 year old former CIA Chief of Station in Algeria, was arrested April 2010. Warren’s neighbors called Norfolk police when Warren exposed himself in public. “He had his genitals hanging out of his pants, over the top of ‘em,” said one witness. Warren reportedly said “Excuse me. I’ve had minor surgery so I get a little horny sometimes.” He had been terminated from employment with the CIA in May 2009, after he drugged the drink of a woman in Algiers and raped her. Warren plead guilty and, June 2009, was indicted on sexual assault charges. Diplomatic Security Service agents also found child pornography on Warren’s laptop computer in 2008. When he was the CIA’s Chief of Station in Algeria, he allegedly “drugged and raped multiple women before getting recalled home.” Warren was sentenced, on sex assault charges, among others, to more than five years in federal prison in March 2011. It appears Warren was not charged for the child pornography on his government computer.

Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI)

• Donald Sachtleben, a 54 year old former FBI Agent was arrested, 14 May 2012, and charged on child pornography charges. He plead guilty to distribution and possession and was sentenced, 14 November 2013, to eight years in prison. He was also sentenced to unrelated charges of one count of disclosing and one count of possessing classified information. At the time of his arrest Sachtleben was Director of Training at the Center for Improvised Explosives at Oklahoma State University. He served the FBI from 1983 to 2008 as a bomb technician and counter terrorism investigator. Sachtleben had been using the handle pedodave69@yahoo.com when he was caught sending images of child sex abuse in an on-line forum. He wrote, “Saw your profile on (a file sharing network). Hope you like these and can send me some of ours (sic). I have even better ones if you like.”

• Keith Dietterle, a 28 year old FBI Analyst, was arrested, 23 November 2012, on child porn charges. He plead guilty to child porn possession and was sentenced, September 2013, to more than three years in prison. Dietterle was caught when he sent child sex abuse images/videos to an undercover Metro DC Detective. The detective was posing as a man sexually abusing his 3 year old nephew and 12 year old daughter. Dietterle described the rape of the children as “So hot man … how’d it start?” and discussed meeting the detective with the intention of sexually abusing the three year old boy. Upon his arrest, the FBI terminated Dietterle’s employment.

Homeland Security

• Brian Doyle, Deputy Press Secretary for the Department of Homeland Security, was arrested “for trying to seduce online someone he thought was a teenage girl.” Doyle was charged with 23 felony charges related to sexually graphic conversations with a person he thought was a 14 year old girl who, in reality was, an undercover detective. On 17 November 2006, Doyle was sentenced to five years in prison with ten years probation thereafter. He is a registered sex offender and was released from prison on 11 January 2015.

• 31 year old Eric Higgins, a Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection agent in Michigan, plead guilty to child porn possession. Over forty images of a child previously identified by law enforcement were found on his laptop.

• Nicholas Bolden, a 40 year old Homeland Security Customs and Border Patrol agent, was sentenced for child porn possession on his government computer. Bolden had accessed a Russian child porn website while at work from his work computer. A child porn CD was also found at his workplace desk.

• Gilbert Lam, a 38 year old Homeland Security Customs and Border Protection agent who worked at San Francisco airport, was charged with child porn possession and distribution. Investigators said his electronic resources were “elaborate” and included “a whole closet… independent server, several computers, several hard drives…”

• Robert Rennie, a 43 year old Homeland Security agent who worked in the National Protection and Programs Directorate, was charged with attempting to solicit sexual acts from more than seventy young girls using a fake Facebook account and pretending to be both a male student at a Virginia middle schools as well as a college student at George Mason University.

• An unnamed Homeland Security agent with Customs and Border Protection and Byungki Koo an Air Marshal were arrested for trafficking “young women” from South Korea in a sex-trafficking ring in Queens, New York.

National Children’s Museum

• Robert Singer, 49 year old father of two and Chief Operating Officer for Washington DC’s National Children’s Museum, was arrested, 6 November 2007, and charged on five child porn distribution counts. He plead guilty and was sentenced, 16 July 2009, to five years in prison. Singer was caught sending child sex abuse images of children as young as five years old, including from his work computer, to an undercover New York Police Detective who was posing as a 12 year old girl and her 33 year old mother. Singer was pretending to be a 15 year old boy. He was using the online handle badboy2. Upon his arrest, the museum terminated his employment.

Police Departments & Military Staff

Police officers are, of course, also government employees as are US military staff. The arrests, alone, of both state government employed police officers and federally employed military staff are stunning. These arrests are so numerous, and my record is very incomplete, that it appears trading in child sex rape and torture is almost encouraged within some police departments and military units. Recent arrests of Police Arrested for Trading in Child Rape & Torture and Military Staff Trading in Child Rape & Torture are listed in separate postings.

Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA)

• 48 year old Scott Whitcomb, a former police officer, at the time of his arrest a Drug Enforcement Agent, was sentenced for child porn production. He had been producing and distributing sex abuse of boys under sixteen years old since 2007. Whitcomb lured boys to his house with video games and porn magazines and would turn violent if the boys didn’t submit to the sex abuse. He had been an Air Marshal and a prison guard.

• DEA agent Darren Argento was arrested for possession and distribution of child sex abuse of girls between seven and fourteen years old his work laptop.

Department of Energy

• David Busby, 61 year old computer technician who had worked for the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center for 30 years, was arrested on child porn charges. He was sentenced, March 2014, to ten years in federal prison. He had been trading in child sex abuse on his US government computer. He was previously convicted for “lewd behavior” toward his 7 year old stepdaughter in 1990. At the time of his arrest, investigators found some 1,400 child sex abuse images/videos. Busby was also a Navy veteran who served in Vietnam.

Department of Agriculture

• James Spargo, a 66 year old employee with the Department of Agriculture in Florida, plead no contest plea to 20 felonies child porn counts and was sentenced, February 2015, to 10 years in prison. Spargo was arrested when investigators found child sex abuse images/videos on his government computer. Most of the children in the images/videos were infants and toddlers. “The activity we uncovered here was just was just horrible,” said Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services spokesperson Erin Gillespie. “It was horrifying, it was disgusting, and we gathered all the evidence we could to make sure that this arrest was going to happen.”

Forest and Park Rangers

• Bobby Kelly, a 31 year old US Forest Ranger was sentenced to five years for more than two dozen child porn related charges.

• Derek Alan Lee, a 44 year old US Forest Service employee, was sentenced for child porn. Lee was sentenced with his 21 year old step-son Jeffrey McMillan. Their computers were found sending “several hundred files” of child sex abuse on the internet. Lee said he had been downloading child porn for ten years. At the time of his arrest his computer had 111 videos and 116 images of child sex abuse. He also had a collection of “incest stories.”

Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS)

• William Shaffer, a Child Protection Services (CPS) staff was arrested, July 2013, after he purchased nearly $7,000 of child rape and torture, aka child porn. According Shaffer’s criminal complaint “a 1987 police report alleged Shaffer sexually molested a boy between the ages of 8 and 9. The police report alleged the incident happened while Shafer was a Child Protective Services employee.” Investigators also seized “sexual stories” from Shaffer’s home. “One of them describes a seventh grade boy being abducted, molested and sodomized. It is not clear if Shaffer wrote the story — but refers to Michigan State University and 16 Mile Road. Shaffer’s residence is located just south of Maple Road.”

• Stanley Dorozynski, a 53 year old Child Protective Services (CPS) employee, was arrested, 21 December 2010, and charged with two counts, one each, of possessing and receiving child porn. Upon his arrest, Dorozynski possessed more than 2,400 child sex abuse images/videos including the abuse of children as young as four years old. Investigators also recovered 11 zip discs of child porn in a locked trunk, among other CDs. Doroszynski had been trading in child rape and torture since 1990. Dorozynski plead guilty, 27 July 2012, and was sentenced to six years in federal prison. His girlfriend found the child sex abuse images/videos and notified law enforcement. He had been a police officer in Utica, New York, before he went to work for Health and Human Services.

Air Marshals

• Michael McGowan, a 41 year old Air Marshal, was convicted for molesting three young boys, age eleven to thirteen, and child porn possession. He had 1,300 videos and images, along with fake FBI and CIA badges.

• Richard Castillo, a Houston Air Marshal, was indicted for indecency with a child after his daughter’s fourteen year old friend said he sexually assaulted her during a sleepover.

• Air Marshal Byungki Koo, who was mentioned under the Homeland Security section, received four years probation for participating in the sex trafficking of young women from Korea in Queens.

Transportation Security Agency (TSA)

• 59 year old Boston TSA agent Jose Salgado, charged with possession and distribution of child porn. As of this arrest April 2012, it was reported that a total of twelve child sex crimes in the previous sixteen months had been brought against TSA agents across America.

• Michael Wilson, 41 year old Baltimore TSA agent was indicated for child porn possession including videos “depicting a prepubescent female engaged in masturbation and anal sex with an adult male.”

• Andrew Smeal, 39 year old Florida TSA agent, was charged with twenty-five counts of child porn possession. An investigator said “…the living room was loaded with electronics, storage devices, hard drives.” I couldn’t locate information on how much child porn he had or what it was depicting; however, given he was charged with twenty-five counts, one can assume he had a large amount of child sex abuse videos and images.

• Thomas Gordon, a 46 year old TSA agent in Philadelphia, was sentenced for possession and distribution of child porn. He had over 600 images and videos of child sex abuse including children as young as six years old which were described as “horrific.” He had as many as six fake Facebook accounts he was using to distribute child porn.

• TSA hired 65 year old Thomas Harkin, a former Catholic priest who had been removed from the church for the sex abuse of an eleven year old girl, among possible other victims, to work at Philadelphia airport.

• TSA Agent, 38 year old Miguel Angel Quinones, who worked at Manchester airport in New Hampshire, was indicted on twenty counts of child porn possession. He had more than 1,000 child sex abuse images and videos. He kept his child porn in his airport work locker.

Bureau of Indian Affairs

• Jasper Neil Blair, a 27 year civil engineer with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, was arrested for child porn possession and plead guilty, 31 May 2012, “to knowingly possessing an image of a six-year-old girl being sexually abused,” and was sentenced, 4 October 2012, to two and half years in federal prison. Blair was using his government computer to trade in child rape and torture, aka child pornography.

Corrections and Probation Officers

• Former West Virginia Corrections Center Officer, 35 year old Joseph Roush, plead guilty to child porn possession and distribution. He had more than 500 image of child sex abuse.

• Leon Perry Brookes, a 39 year old a Corrections Officer for Jacksonville (Florida) Sheriff’s Office was arrested for child porn possession and distribution. Among others, he had child sex abuse files called “pthc- freaky latin parents and 5yr daughter.mpg” and “video-8yr orgasm and anal fuck hard ! new ! (ptch) 2007 new girl img.

• Gerald Silva, a 59 year old Rhode Island State Probation Officer, was convicted of child porn for his $1,589 USD purchase of 22 orders of child sex abuse from Azov Film’s website, spending a total of $1,589 on 75 different videos. He was caught by USPS Inspectors and Toronto Police investigation, Project Spade.

• Stuart Forrest, 62 year old Chief Probation Officer of San Mateo County, California, was sentenced for child porn possession that included the abuse of young bound boys. He had more than 400 images and videos of child sex abuse. This case was also part of Project Spade, run by the USPS and Toronto Police.

• Supervisor of Adult Probation and Parole and Sex Offender Unit in New Mexico, Larry Franco, 56 years old, was charged two counts of fourth-degree felony sexual exploitation of a minor by possession and one count of tampering with evidence. He had originally been charged with 26 new child porn counts. He was producing child porn.

• James Leone, a 50 year old Senior Parole Official in New York who supervised officers who monitored paroled sex offenders, was arrested for child porn possession. He had been downloading child sex abuse images in online searches for “preteen hard-core” including ten or twelve year old girls being sexually abused by their parents and a brother. Leone was a Child Abuse Investigator with New York City Child Welfare Bureau before he became a parole officer.

• Barry Porter Griffith, a 45 year old Parole Officer from Flint Texas, was sentenced for child porn possession after investigators noticed “significant Internet bandwidth being used by a state-owned computer to view pornography” including child sex abuse from his office computer.

• James Kriegner, a 43 year old Corrections Officer with Mercer County, New Jersey, charged with downloading more than 100 child sex abuse images.

Media Coverage of Ryan Loskarn’s Arrest

The media coverage of late Senate staffer Ryan Loskarn’s arrest for graphic and violent child porn, including the rape of a six year old girl in the woods by her father, ignored, entirely, the children in the videos. These are real children suffering real harm. Will the six year old girl raped in the woods by her father be rescued? No one asked. No one wanted to know.

John Harwood, for example, a DC reporter for CNBC and The New York Times, tweeted “Feeling so sad about Ryan Loskarn. Knew him a bit as a reporter and liked him. RIP.” I asked Harwood about the children in Loskarn’s child porn collection. Harwood’s response was “as father of daughters I’m horrified by that violent abuse. But I knew Ryan Loskarn & yes, I am sad for him & his family.”

I responded, “I appreciate that. As the father of daughters will you focus media attention on finding the 6 yr girl in Loskarn’s video? That’s all I am asking. It’s a simple & I think appropriate request. Given #Loskarn’s final words were to the children. No?”

Harwood never replied.

Child Porn as a National Security Threat

America has a child porn crisis. The disturbing number of federal and state employees arrested for child porn charges makes this a national security issue. Over the past few years, I’ve been documenting the scope of America’s child porn industry and the apparent level of involvement by America’s national security and federal employees. Forbes, The Washington Times and others have published my research. Fox News and Canadian TV (CTV) invited me for interviews. My CTV interview went mini-viral as did my Forbes article. I was the first to ask, in 2012, if White House staff might have been involved in the Colombia Secret Service scandal.

I am now researching and writing a book: Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden Security Threat. My starting premise is men, and increasingly women, are raping children, very young children, including infants and toddlers, and sharing videos, images, and live-streaming of this abuse at epidemic levels. These criminals are, by and large, getting away with it because America refuses to move beyond our denial.

We are sustaining crisis-level numbers of seemingly normal, often powerful and successful men, and some women, involved in America’s child sex abuse industry; far too many of whom are federal or state employees.

It does not matter if the perpetrator is on the demand-side, with incessant appetites for graphic child abuse to achieve sexual gratification, or the supply-side of abusing children, often their own or children of friends and relatives, and selling this abuse on-line. Both supply and demand, which often cross over, have reached epidemic proportions and no one is talking about it.

My research is intended to be a wake-up call. The problem of child sex abuse, and its cover-up, is real. A generation of American children are being destroyed. If you think this only happens to other children, and your children are safe, you are sadly mistaken. Your children might be enduring sexual abuse right now while you remain dangerously ignorant. Ryan Loskarn’s parents never knew, until they read his suicide note, that he had suffered sex abuse as a child.

America’s appetite for child porn puts all our children at risk. Your children and mine. Whether you acknowledge it or not.

Dr. Paul Farmer, a humanitarian and personal hero, has said we must find the words to talk about the most painful subjects if we hope to have any positive impact on this world of ours. This is my attempt to find those words and open a subject no one wants to discuss.

That is, that while no one was watching, America has become a child porn nation and that puts us all at risk.

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Dr. Lori Handrahan’s forthcoming book Child Porn Nation: America’s Hidden National Security Risk details America’s child sex abuse epidemic. Her Ph.D. is from The London School of Economics. She can be reached on Twitter @LoriHandrahan2