Florida ICAC Task force nets online predators
By Lise Fisher, Apr 12, 2006, Sun staff writer
Online crimes against children can affect the best of families.
Gainesville Police Cpl. Mitch Nixon, the coordinator of the North Florida Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, has seen it before. Parents who would never let their child talk to a stranger on the street still allow their son or daughter to communicate unsupervised via the computer on blogs, in chatrooms or through Web sites.
"This is where predators hang out," Nixon said. "This is a cyber public place. But they don't look at it that way."
Not only can anyone's child become a victim, Nixon said. Suspects accused of luring children through online chats come from all walks of life.
"The online victimization of children is one of those types of crimes that really have no common socioeconomic theme. You are just as likely to investigate a construction laborer or convenience store clerk as you are an insurance agent. We've had cases involving police officers. It's pretty much across the whole spectrum of people," he said.
Last week, officers arrested a spokesman for the Homeland Security Department, Brian J. Doyle, 55. The Maryland man was accused of engaging in online sexual conversations with a Polk County undercover detective who was posing as a teenage girl.
The Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, based at the Gainesville Police Department and also known as ICAC, was involved in the case and coordinated contact between the Polk County Sheriff's Office and Maryland law enforcement.
"It's an ICAC success story," Nixon said.
Officers in Polk County, which is in the 38-county district covered by the North Florida task force, contacted Nixon, who then put them in touch with the ICAC task force in Maryland, where Doyle lives.
"That's what we're designed to do. We can reach seven states away and reach another agency familiar with these investigations," Nixon said.
Before the creation of the task force, a case where the suspect didn't come to Florida probably would have been dropped because it would have been difficult to get law enforcement cooperation outside of the state, he said.
The area task force, started in 2003, is one of 46 nationwide, Nixon said.
In the past six months, task force members throughout North Florida have investigated more than 80 online enticement cases, 57 cases of distribution of child pornography and more than 170 cases of the manufacture, distribution and possession of child pornography, Nixon said. The cases have resulted in 56 arrests. Officers also identified five victims who were being used in the manufacture of child pornography.
Polk County Sheriff's detectives Sandy Scherer and Charlie Gates investigated the case against Doyle.
Investigators moved quickly because of concerns over what Doyle was saying online. He talked about his work with what he believed was a teenage girl, she said. "Part of our concern with this particular suspect was he had high security clearance. We were concerned with what else he was discussing with people on the Internet."
Doyle is now fighting extradition to Florida and has since resigned from his job, Scherer said.
Parents need to keep up with what their kids are interested in online to help keep them safe, Nixon said.
About two years ago, for example, kids were talking with friends in online chatrooms. Now, the popular trend is posting photos and information on Web sites like MySpace.com, facebook.com, friendster.com and others.
"The time kids spend in chatrooms is going down," Nixon said. "Time spent on blog sites or MySpace, that's going up. That's kind of the new meeting space."
Scherer said she has had four cases in the past two months involving MySpace accounts. "The predators are going to go where the kids are," she said. "It's such a subculture, and how they know about a Web site before law enforcement knows about it is beyond me."
The best way for parents to protect their kids is to know what their child is doing on the computer.
"There's no software, nothing that beats parental involvement," he said.
Lise Fisher can be reached at (352) 374-5092 or fisherl@gvillesun.com.
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