Internet Crimes Against Children - Exploitations of Minors
Kardasz: This sad case originated from over two dozen reports of child pornography trafficked via Yahoo and subsequently reported to the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Agents from ICE played a prominent role in this investigation.
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Man with HIV gets prison for sex with teen
By Michael Kiefer / The Arizona Republic / Dec. 17, 2005 12:00 AM
An HIV-positive Phoenix man was sentenced to nearly four years in prison Friday for having unprotected sex with a 15-year-old boy. Thomas Herbert, 30, will also spend the rest of his life on probation, and he is scheduled to go to trial in June on 10 counts of sexual exploitation of a minor, a child pornography charge. If convicted, he could face more than 200 years in prison.
Judge Douglas Rayes of Maricopa County Superior Court scolded Herbert for exposing "a child to the risk of a disease which is always fatal and for which there is no cure." "He has caused that young man to pass the rest of his life wondering if he's going to end up with AIDS," Rayes said. Prosecutors claimed that Herbert met the victim over the Internet in 2003 and had sex with him on numerous occasions over the next year and a half. He also brought the youth to his house so that he could have sex with his housemate, Robert Price, who had AIDS.
In July 2004, the two men were indicted on 22 counts, including sexual conduct with a minor, child abuse and furnishing obscene items to a minor. In April 2005, they signed a plea agreement with prosecutors in which they each pleaded guilty to two counts of sexual conduct and one count of child abuse. The child-abuse charge, based on the fact that both men had HIV, is the more serious charge and required a prison sentence of 1 1/2 to 3 3/4 years. Because the boy was 15 years old and had willingly participated in sex, the sexual-conduct charge required only a sentence of lifetime probation.
But in June, before the men could be sentenced, they were indicted on charges of possession of child pornography and a bottle that contained a date-rape drug. Price, 38, pleaded guilty to lesser charges and was sentenced Oct. 27 to 3 3/4 years in prison. Three weeks later, he was found hanging in his cell in ! a state prison in Florence. "Every indication is that it was a suicide," said Bart Graves of the Arizona Department of Corrections. Herbert thought differently. "He was murdered," he told the judge as he awaited his sentence. The judge's words to Herbert were: "Good luck."