Federal prosecutors trying to stem child pornography and aid its victims are going after the assets of offenders under an evolving change in Justice Department policy, reports the Associated Press. A former provost marshal at the U.S. Army's Fort Drum in northern New York was sentenced to almost six years in prison for possessing and sharing child pornography and will soon pay $10,000 each to two victims identified from among more than 700 images of children he had.
The payments are meant to deter sharing images of exploited children and to help pay for their later psychiatric or other treatment. Federal prosecutors said there are thousands of cases nationally, the crime proliferating with the Internet. “I would say in our closed inventory, there are hundreds of cases. They've been convicted, sentenced and their conviction has been affirmed on appeal,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney William Pericak in Albany. The Justice Department says its project against exploitation of minors has increased prosecutions 40 percent since 2006, with 2,315 indictments filed against 2,427 defendants in 2009 and almost 9,000 charged over four years. More than 3,000 victims of child pornography crimes were identified.
Link: http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2011/01/18/news/doc4d34d4bf33933722012908.txt