More than 70 arrested in N.Y.C. over online child porn

A Boy Scout leader, a Little League coach, a rabbi and a police officer were among more than 70 people arrested in the New York City area in one of the largest roundups of people who allegedly share child pornography online, a federal official said Wednesday.

Those arrested face charges of sharing and distributing child pornography through peer-to-peer file networks, which allow massive numbers of images, documents and videos to be traded online, said a federal agent who declined to be named ahead of an official announcement later in the day.

The dozens of suspects arrested were from all walks of life and included a paramedic and a nurse, the official said.

Looking at the images "is not something that is just done by unemployed drifters who live in their parents’ basement," said James Hayes of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) New York office. "If this operation does anything, it puts the lie to the belief that the people who do this are not productive members of society."

In the sweeping cyber-dragnet, federal agents collected more than 600 computers, tablets, smartphones and other devices and were combing through their content.

Agents are still examining the devices to locate and catalog evidence — an arduous task that could result in more arrests. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will also use its analysts to review the images, in an attempt to identify children using databases of known survivors.

"We refer to each of these images as a crime-scene photo, because that's exactly what they are," said John Ryan, the organization's chief executive officer.

The arrests follow a monthlong investigation led by ICE’s Homeland Security Investigations with the cooperation of local law enforcement, which makes up one of the largest child pornography operations of its kind, the official said.

Authorities said some of the defendants had access to young children, though there were no reports of abuse. The Boy Scout leader also coached a youth baseball team. The rabbi home-schooled his children and others. Another person had hidden cameras used to secretly film his children's friends.

One defendant was already on bail following his arrest last year on charges that he used the Internet to direct women to record sex acts with young children. Court papers allege he "indicated the last video he had downloaded and viewed depicted a mother sexually abusing her three- or four-year-old child."

Al Jazeera and wires services