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I-TeamI-Team: Legal Preteen PornBy John Mercure
Child porn, masquerading as modeling Web sites.
The I-Team uncovers a disturbing trend online... new sites that cater to pedophiles. And they're legal.
Cops and prosecutors say the sites are dangerous.
Many of the images we found were too disturbing to show. They depict young girls in sexual positions. The sites claims they're pre-teen models. But local cops like Steve Pederson don't buy it.
"You look at this and you just start shaking your head and (say) 'Why?'" he told the I-Team.
Why? It makes money. Girls as young as 8-years-old, wearing thongs and less.
We took our findings to the Waukesha County Sheriff's Department, where detectives routinely track and arrest Internet predators.
"Clearly anyone who would visit these kinds of sites is somebody who has got other intentions," Pederson said.
It took the detective about two seconds to cut to the bottom line on these sites. "Clearly somebody has this on their computer all we have to do is dig deeper and we're going to find the stuff we can lock them up for."
The so-called "modeling" sites have names like Little Nymphets and Play Angel. Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel calls them "very disturbing."
"If we can identify someone who is taking a closer look at this stuff, we're going to take a closer look at them. Absolutely. This is evidence of disturbing behavior," he told the I-Team.
Schimel says the pictures are very similar to what old school perverts used to clip from catalogs and pin on their bulletin boards… with one disgusting difference.
"In those catalogs the girls were just having fun or standing by a swimming pool. Now these are deliberately posed to have a sexual content to it."
Counselor Roger Northway says that's the point. "It's sort of soft core kiddie porn." He's a specialist on inappropriate compulsive sex behavior. "This is the equivalent of the SI swimsuit addition. If instead of being turned on to adult women you're turned on to young girls, this is the same thing."
And as hideous as it is… it's legal, says Schimel. "They know what we're able to prosecute. They take steps to go right up to the line. This is doing exactly that. This is going right up to the line where I can't quite get 'em."
Parents we found were dismayed.
"That's as old as my daughter right there and she's four. Shocking."
"Disgusting. Unbelievable. I can't believe young girls like this. Unbelievable," one dad reacted.
"It's child abuse in the worst form," a mom put it succinctly.
"There's no reason anyone should be looking at that, if it's legal or not. I mean, come on. Please. These are our little girls that we're talking about."
Then there's another site called "Sugar and Spice." It looks like a kid playground. But don't let the fun colors fool you. It's actually a hunting ground for pedophiles and perverts.
"Sugar and Spice" even attempts to define pedophile…. Claiming that pedophiles are misunderstood… and they're nothing more than girl-lovers… men attracted to young girls.
Pederson isn't buying it. "I don't know anybody who has ever misused the term pedophile and I have never read that type of definition of pedophile."
D.A. Schimel agrees. "That is grooming behavior…unquestionably. And any young kids that are reading that… that site is grooming them for inappropriate things to happen."
Roger Northway believes sites like Sugar and Spice may actually tilt men toward an inappropriate interest in kids. "These sites can reinforce a lot of erroneous thinking or they can give permission for a lot of erroneous thinking."
And these girls are being hunted.
Experts say the best way for you to combat this is to be intimately aware of what your kids are doing on-line…. Where they're visiting. Check the history. And the most important thing for a parent is to just be aware what's out there.
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