Law enforcement agencies pooling resources to fight Internet child porn, abuse

By MICHAEL KRANSZ
Capital News Service
LANSING — The recent arrest of a Marquette County man for allegedly furnishing child pornography and sexually assaulting a minor illustrates a growing collaboration among law enforcement agencies to track down sexual predators who use digital devices.
Andrew Caron, 43, of Forsyth Township has been arraigned on 29 counts of furnishing and producing child sexual material and 10 counts of criminal sexual conduct, including penetration and oral sex, with a child under 13, Undersheriff Michael Klein of the Marquette County Sheriff’s Office said.
To catch Caron, the sheriff’s office conducted a seven-month investigation with help from the Forsyth Township Police Department and a State Police cybercrime unit in Traverse City, Klein said.

The investigation is ongoing to determine if there is more than one victim, Klein said.
The case reflects intensified investigations into Internet-related sex crimes involving children, experts say.
David Finkelhor, director of the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire, said that while the center’s most recent data shows a decline in sexual solicitation of children on the Internet, any trend in the number of people viewing and downloading child pornography is unclear.
“The percentage of sex crimes against children that involved some Internet component still was relatively a small proportion of all the sex crimes against children,” Finkelhor said. “Although we think of the Internet as being a very central phenomenon, it’s still the case that these sex crimes are taking place in the conventional ways.”
But one thing is clear, he said: Law enforcement agencies are getting better at catching Internet predators and viewers of sexually abusive material involving minors.
Undersheriff Mike Bitnar of the Chippewa County Sheriff’s Office said child pornography cases have “increased dramatically” in the last two to three years.
“We’ve always had it, but we almost have a case or two going with that all the time right now,” Bitnar said. “Most of what we have is just the people downloading.”
Like the seven-month Caron investigation, working a child pornography case is a time- and resource-consuming process, he said.
In addition to warrants and subpoenas, electronic devices used to view the pornography must undergo forensic analysis. To expedite that process, Bitnar said his department turns to nearby computer crimes units, such as the one at the Mackinac County Sheriff’s Office.
Mackinac County Undersheriff Edward Wilk said the forensic computer analyst in his office is a valuable asset in an increasingly digital world, whether an investigation involves credit card theft or child pornography.
Having an analyst in-house is a boon, Wilk said, as the office and nearby agencies can turn to a local source for digital crime assistance, alleviating some of the backlog at the state level.
“A lot of the surrounding agencies come to us because the turnaround is a little quicker than the State Police,” Wilk said.