Detectives with the Passaic County Sheriff’s Department’s Internet Crimes Unit arrested the teen Tuesday. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children contacted sheriff’s detectives about someone posting photos of an underage nude girl on a MySpace profile. The center, which monitors social networking sites for illegal images of children, contacted county detectives through the State Police’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, said Bill Maer, the sheriff’s department spokesman.While it would be easy to solely blame the parents for not monitoring their kids behavior online, it is all too easy for someone of any age with Internet access to post inappropriate and illegal content. The parents do take the blame for not teaching their kids to keep a lid on their sexual exploits, or at least not being so exhibitionist that they feel they have to post the photos online.
Following a month-long investigation, detectives discovered that the person posting the pictures was the same person featured in them — the 14-year-old girl. Anyone who was “friends” with the girl through MySpace or knew her full name could have accessed the photos.
The teen was charged with one count of possession of child pornography and one count of distribution of child pornography. She was released into her mother’s custody, Maer said.
The teen reportedly told police she posted the pictures into a photo album for her boyfriend’s enjoyment. More arrests may be forthcoming, Maer said.
If this isn't a reminder of the seedy side of the Internet and the pitfalls that parents can run into, then this sad story surely should. A 16-year-old confessed to murdering longtime ABC News personality George Weber after Weber apparently solicited a sexual encounter on Craigslist.
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