too bad we can't get the same sentencing here in Canada.....
U.S. justice officials are crediting a Canadian police officer’s investigative smarts — and expert knowledge of beer — for cracking a major child-pornography case that led this week to a 36-year prison sentence for a Maryland man.
In what U.S. District Attorney Rod Rosenstein called an “awe-inspiring” international probe by Canadian and U.S. investigators, 47-year-old Timothy Malcolm Beers pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to produce child pornography, sexually exploiting two girls aged 3 and 5, and possessing “a large collection” of illicit materials showing the sexual abuse of many other children.
Beers, a resident of Bowie, Md., also agreed to pay $75,000 to each of his victims, and faces supervised release for life if he survives his lengthy jail term.
The key to solving the case was the Canadian officer’s discovery of an online, child-porn photograph in which a can of beer could be seen in the background.
The officer recognized the beer as a regional brand distributed in only eight states in the Northeastern U.S., including Maine and Maryland.
After an alert was issued to child-pornography investigators in those states, a detective assigned to an Internet crimes task force in Maine discerned another clue in the photograph — an unusual pair of eyeglasses that could be traced to a limited number of ophthalmologists throughout the target region.
A prosecutor and FBI agent in New York closed the loop, linking a pair of glasses sold by a Maryland ophthalmologist to Beers. He was arrested by the FBI and local police last August, and a plea arrangement negotiated in the months since then resulted in Thursday’s sentencing at a U.S. district court in Baltimore.
“The international law enforcement effort that saved two little girls in Maryland from ongoing sexual abuse is awe-inspiring, and it has become a source of admiration and inspiration at national seminars focused on combating child exploitation,” Rosenstein, Maryland’s top prosecutor, said in a statement announcing Beers’ sentencing. “Thanks to their extraordinary commitment and exceptional investigative skills, the discovery of a photograph in Canada led to an arrest here in Maryland and the rescue of two victimized children.”
He expressed gratitude to the RCMP and Toronto Police Service, singled out the unnamed Canadian investigator for kick-starting the cross-border probe by noticing that “a beer can in the photographs appeared to come from the northeastern United States.”
The head of Maine’s task force on child pornography, Sgt. Glenn Lang, said the case was a “great example” of Internet policing and
U.S. justice officials are crediting a Canadian police officer’s investigative smarts — and expert knowledge of beer — for cracking a major child-pornography case that led this week to a 36-year prison sentence for a Maryland man.
In what U.S. District Attorney Rod Rosenstein called an “awe-inspiring” international probe by Canadian and U.S. investigators, 47-year-old Timothy Malcolm Beers pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to produce child pornography, sexually exploiting two girls aged 3 and 5, and possessing “a large collection” of illicit materials showing the sexual abuse of many other children.
Beers, a resident of Bowie, Md., also agreed to pay $75,000 to each of his victims, and faces supervised release for life if he survives his lengthy jail term.
The key to solving the case was the Canadian officer’s discovery of an online, child-porn photograph in which a can of beer could be seen in the background.
The officer recognized the beer as a regional brand distributed in only eight states in the Northeastern U.S., including Maine and Maryland.
After an alert was issued to child-pornography investigators in those states, a detective assigned to an Internet crimes task force in Maine discerned another clue in the photograph — an unusual pair of eyeglasses that could be traced to a limited number of ophthalmologists throughout the target region.
A prosecutor and FBI agent in New York closed the loop, linking a pair of glasses sold by a Maryland ophthalmologist to Beers. He was arrested by the FBI and local police last August, and a plea arrangement negotiated in the months since then resulted in Thursday’s sentencing at a U.S. district court in Baltimore.
“The international law enforcement effort that saved two little girls in Maryland from ongoing sexual abuse is awe-inspiring, and it has become a source of admiration and inspiration at national seminars focused on combating child exploitation,” Rosenstein, Maryland’s top prosecutor, said in a statement announcing Beers’ sentencing. “Thanks to their extraordinary commitment and exceptional investigative skills, the discovery of a photograph in Canada led to an arrest here in Maryland and the rescue of two victimized children.”
He expressed gratitude to the RCMP and Toronto Police Service, singled out the unnamed Canadian investigator for kick-starting the cross-border probe by noticing that “a beer can in the photographs appeared to come from the northeastern United States.”
The head of Maine’s task force on child pornography, Sgt. Glenn Lang, said the case was a “great example” of Internet policing and
That's beyond sick!! Unfortunately, I'm no longer all that shocked by the depths of depravity to which some people sink.
