The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

association, was arrested after the search. After his arrest, he committed suicide inprison.(5) Birmingham, Alabama—This man was identified as a customer of the childpornography web site, as well as a member of the two noted online bulletin boards.After the search of his residence and the recovery of numerous images and videos ofchild pornography, investigators identified a series of sexually explicit imagesinvolving the man’s four-year-old daughter and taken by him. A few hours after thesearch of his residence, the suspect was killed in a head-on collision.(6) Medford Lakes, New Jersey—An individual in New Jersey was prosecuted for andultimately pled guilty to producing sexual images of his own 9-year-old daughter.Evidence seized during the search of his residence revealed that he possessed nearly130,000 images of child pornography. Currently in custody, he was sentenced to 19.5years in prison.(7) Philadelphia, Pennsylvania—An individual in Pennsylvania was identified andcharged with advertising, distributing, receiving, and possessing child pornography.Evidence indicated he created and administered a major online child pornographybulletin board with global membership. He was a prior convicted sex offender andspent 14 years in state prison on two separate convictions for molesting a 9 and 10­year-old. He was convicted at trial on all charges and received a life sentence.This joint operation highlights several key aspects to the future success of combating childpornography in America and the employment of Project Safe Childhood teams, a DOJ initiative,to accomplish that end. First, its genesis was a major international cooperative operation inwhich the United States fully participated. Second, because of its multifaceted nature, threemajor federal investigative entities, in conjunction with CEOS, jointly endeavored to investigateeach international lead. Finally, when leads were generated through the operation, Project SafeChildhood coordinators and teams were used in the field to conduct searches and prosecutecases.As is expected in any investigation, a number of offenders opted to give statements to lawenforcement. Through those statements and ensuing law enforcement actions, law enforcementlearned of seven more online child pornography trading communities. The membership in thosecommunities is believed to number approximately 2,000. Many of the members of these onlinecommunities, who at first appeared only to be child pornography collectors, were also activelyabusing children and producing images of that abuse.The single discovery in Australia of a child being sexually abused in Belgium led to thediscovery of thousands of persons in 30 different countries trading in child pornography. Whensearch warrants were executed, law enforcement discovered that a number of targets had beenactively sexually abusing children. A number of those children would still be in that sexuallyabusive situation today had it not been for the identification of the offender through the childpornography investigation.A-6