ICE arrests child pornographer who is sentenced to 20 years in prison
With the advent of Internet communications, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) forensic specialists and special agents are witnessing a relatively new phenomenon in the twisted realm of child sexual abuse. Child predators often willingly perform devious acts against children at the behest and direction of a remote viewer, who may be located thousands of miles away.
Such was the crime HSI special agents discovered in February 2013 at the home of Jeff Clouse, 45 of Conyers, Georgia, who had hundreds of child pornography and videos on his computer, including live streamed video of a woman from the Philippines performing sexual acts on her minor daughters, ages six and eight, and taking direction from Clouse.
“Manilla is 8,736 miles from Atlanta,” said the lead HSI special agent in the investigation, R. Scott Harris from HSI Atlanta. “This investigation is another example of how today’s child predator isn’t always in the same room, or even in the same continent, with his or her victim.”
HSI special agents conducted a subsequent interview with Clouse who said that he actively traded child pornography on the Internet. Clouse used the videos as “currency” exchanging them with other pedophiles on a Russian file sharing site to obtain more child pornography. Clouse was arrested in October 2013. He pled guilty and was sentenced on Aug. 4 to 20 years in prison for producing and distributing child pornography via the Internet.
As far as the Philippine woman who sexually abused her children, Harris said “Unfortunately, that part of the story isn’t so good. As long as she is overseas, there is little we can do.”
Harris said that the woman received no money from Clouse. “In these types of cases money doesn’t usually change hands. The motive is purely perverse gratification and very rarely is any financial gain involved,” said Harris.
The investigation began with a lead from the HSI Cyber Crimes Unit, HSI’s state-of-the-art center that combats criminal activity conducted on or facilitated by the Internet. Originally, HSI special agents from Phoenix, Arizona, targeted an individual exchanging child pornography with an email address in Atlanta, Georgia, which is how investigators were led to Clouse.
HSI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Nick S. Annan said, “There will always be a segment of the population who exploits global communications and other new technology for their own selfish gain and sometimes, as in the case of child pornography, evil exploits. HSI will continue to save children from being sexually abused by arresting perpetrators, bringing them to justice and disrupting long-distance connections and file-sharing among pedophiles.”
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