Ariel Castro Allegedly Kept Sexually Abused Kidnap Victims In ‘Chains And Ropes’, Eric Toth, accused of child pornography, evaded authorities for 5 years

Ariel Castro Allegedly Kept Sexually Abused Kidnap Victims In ‘Chains And Ropes’
05/08/2013

The three kidnapped women who endured a decade inside a rundown Cleveland home were bound by ropes and chains and rarely let outside, according to Cleveland’s police chief.

“We have confirmation that they were bound and there was chains and ropes in the home,” Police Chief Michael McGrath said Wednesday morning on the “Today” show. He also said they were “very rarely” permitted in suspect Ariel Castro’s backyard.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/08/ariel-castro-had-ropes-an_n_3237412.html

Ohio man charged with kidnapping, rape By Meghan Barr and Thomas J. Sheeran Associated Press  May 08, 2013

CLEVELAND (AP) — Kidnapping and rape charges were filed Wednesday against a man arrested after three women missing for about a decade were found alive at his home.

Homeowner Ariel Castro was charged while his brothers, Pedro and Onil Castro, were held but faced no immediate charges.

The men were in custody and couldn’t be reached for comment. Their brother-in-law has said the family is ‘‘shocked’’ after hearing about the women at the home.
The three women were subjected to prolonged sexual and psychological abuse and suffered miscarriages, a city councilman briefed on the case said Wednesday.

Councilman Brian Cummins said that many details remain unclear, including the number of pregnancies and the conditions under which the miscarriages occurred. He also said the women were kept in the basement for some time without having access to the rest of the house. Police said they were apparently bound with ropes and chains.

The horrific allegations came out as police built a case.

‘‘We know that the victims have confirmed miscarriages, but with who, how many and what conditions we don’t know,’’ Cummins said. He added: ‘‘It sounds pretty gruesome.’’….

A 2005 domestic-violence filing in Cuyahoga County Domestic Relations Court accused Ariel Castro of twice breaking the nose of his children’s mother, knocking out a tooth, dislocating each shoulder and threatening to kill her and her daughters three or four times in a year.

The filing for a protective order by Grimilda Figueroa also said that Castro frequently abducted her daughters and kept them from her.

In 1993, Castro was arrested on a domestic-violence charge and spent three days in jail before he was released on bail. A grand jury did not return an indictment against him, according to court documents, which don’t detail the allegations….
http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/05/08/ohio-man-charged-with-kidnapping-rape/q3P6S4KfsEqM7Wx9T69ezO/story.html

Eric Toth, accused of child pornography, evaded authorities for 5 years
By Justin Jouvenal, Published: May 5

Eric Toth was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list and had been featured on “America’s Most Wanted,” but last fall, one of the most notorious fugitives in America may have been set to take a stage.

He appeared to be booked to speak at a Las Vegas tech conference.

Colleagues knew the speaker under a different name as an Austin-based tech writer and computer technician they described as brilliant and friendly. But they now suspect that he is the same man who is accused of filming a sex act with a child while he was a teacher at the District’s exclusive Beauvoir school in 2007 or 2008.

They realized the night before the October speech that the tech writer had vanished. Calls and e-mails went unreturned. His Facebook page went dormant. They never saw him again.

His whereabouts remained a mystery until Toth, 31, was arrested in Nicaragua in April. Three people who saw arrest photos of the lanky man with long brown hair said he was the same person they knew from Austin. FBI officials declined to confirm their account. Toth’s attorney did not return a call for comment.

“My reaction was shock,” said Joel Stewart, one of the man’s former bosses at a computer repair store. “This was not an unlikable person. I think a lot of us came to think of him as something of a friend.”

During Toth’s five years on the run, the pattern played out again and again as the man the FBI says is an expert in social engineering and computers was able to invent fresh personas, allegedly obtain fraudulent documents and win the trust of unsuspecting people. When it appeared that he might be discovered, he would simply melt away.

All the while, the man, who authorities warned would not stop molesting children until he was caught, had contact with kids. The Washington Post has been able to reconstruct his time in hiding from the District to the Southwest to Latin America.

“It’s a case study in you never know who you are standing next to,” said Chris Bangs, who worked with the tech writer….
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/eric-toth-accused-of-child-pornography-evaded-authorities-for-5-years/2013/05/05/02813d9a-ae8f-11e2-a986-eec837b1888b_story.html

U.S. bishop charged for not taking porn to police

U.S. bishop charged for not taking porn to police
October 14, 2011 (CBS/AP)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Kansas City’s Catholic bishop was charged Friday with not telling police about child pornography found on a priest’s computer, making him the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children.

Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese Bishop Robert Finn, the first U.S. bishop criminally charged with sheltering an abusive clergyman, pleaded not guilty to one misdemeanor count of failing to report suspected child abuse.

Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Finn and his diocese, which also was charged with one count, had “reasonable cause” to suspect a child had been abused after learning of the images.

“Now that the grand jury investigation has resulted in this indictment, my office will pursue this case vigorously because it is about protecting children,” Baker said. “I want to ensure there are no future failures to report resulting in other unsuspecting victims.”

Finn has acknowledged that he and other diocese officials knew for months about hundreds of “disturbing” images of children that were discovered on a priest’s computer but did not report the matter to authorities or turn over the computer.

….The New York Times reports that Bishop Finn was appointed in 2005 and his vision to return the diocese to more traditional practices has drawn strong opinions. The paper reports he is one of only a few bishops affiliated with Opus Dei, a conservative movement….
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/10/14/national/main20120751.shtml

Bishop Finn Indictment
http://media.kansascity.com/smedia/2011/10/14/14/36/1jHnmQ.So.81.pdf

72 charged in online child pornography ring, Violence Against Women and effects

“the bulletin board distributed the equivalent of 16,000 DVDs of child pornography, adding that the department had recovered more than 1 million images in the U.S. alone.”

“In the United States, more than 20 percent of women have experienced intimate-partner violence, stalking or both. A full 17 percent have reported rape or attempted rape, according to background information in the study.”

72 charged in online child pornography ring

Fifty-two have been arrested in the U.S. and abroad and 13 have pleaded guilty in the case, the result of a crackdown by the Justice and Homeland Security departments. Twenty remain at large.
By Andrew Seidman, Washington Bureau
August 3, 2011

Reporting from Washington—
The Justice Department has charged 72 suspected members of an online child pornography ring that encouraged its members to engage in sexual acts with children 12 and under and submit gruesome, violent material to build a massive private database of images and videos on the Internet.

The crackdown is the result of a joint effort by the departments of Justice and Homeland Security launched in December 2009 to target about 500 people in 13 countries on five continents for their suspected participation in “Dreamboard,” a members-only online bulletin board that was created to encourage the sharing of graphic images and videos.

“The members of this criminal network shared a demented dream to create the preeminent online community for the promotion of child sexual exploitation,” Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said in a statement, “but for the children they victimized, this was nothing short of a nightmare.”

According to court documents filed in Louisiana, where the ring originated, administrators for Dreamboard set up strict barriers to entry and created a sophisticated membership system that offered incentives for further contributions to the website. Individuals had to post child pornography in order to join the site. To maintain membership, individuals were required to continue to upload images of sexual abuse….

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that the bulletin board distributed the equivalent of 16,000 DVDs of child pornography, adding that the department had recovered more than 1 million images in the U.S. alone.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/la-na-child-porn-20110804,0,5337258.story

Violence Against Women Can Take Lifelong Toll: Study
Research shows how rates of mental and physical illness rise, quality of life falls

By Serena Gordon HealthDay Reporter
TUESDAY, Aug. 2 (HealthDay News)

Women who’ve suffered from gender-based violence are more likely to develop anxiety disorders or other mental woes, experience physical and mental disabilities, and have worse quality of life than other women, new research shows.

Gender-based violence includes rape and other forms of sexual assault, intimate-partner violence (such as spouse abuse) and stalking.

Risks for these long-term problems rose with the intensity of abuse. For example, women who’d experienced three or four types of gender-based violence had 10 times the odds of developing an anxiety disorder than women who haven’t experienced such violence, the study found. The odds of a woman who’d been subjected to such violence developing a substance abuse problem were almost six times higher than for a woman who hasn’t experienced gender-based violence….

Results of the study are published in the Aug. 3 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association….

In the United States, more than 20 percent of women have experienced intimate-partner violence, stalking or both. A full 17 percent have reported rape or attempted rape, according to background information in the study.

The data for Rees’ study came from a national survey done in Australia on mental health and well-being. The survey included over 4,400 women between the ages of 16 and 85 years old.

In that group, 1,218 women (27 percent) reported experiencing at least one form of gender-based violence, while 139 had been exposed to three or more forms of gender-based violence.

The average age that women were first raped was 13 years old and 12 years old for sexual assault. The average age that women were beaten by a partner or stalked was 22 years old.

The more violence a woman was exposed to, the greater her risk of developing mental illnesses, according to the study.

http://consumer.healthday.com/Article.asp?AID=655484

 

Casey Anthony case sealed evidence, Child p_rn victims get younger, violence

“Seemingly normal people….are charged with possessing and making child porn, a $3-billion-a-year industry that the federal government has labeled the new silent child abuse…..Currently, there are an estimated 100,000 known child porn websites”

WHEN WILL WE SEE THE “SEALED” EVIDENCE?
2011 July 16 by Wendy Murphy

First, I’m excited to let you all know that I have a book coming out very soon.  Technology allows for the publication of books far faster than ever before, but it still takes a bit of time to get things organized.  Stay tuned here for more information on the likely release date.  My hope is that it will be out before the end of August….

Assuming the backstory includes “sealed” evidence of postitution and/or child pornography, which I believe is the case, there are two key reasons this information would have been excluded from trial.  One is that the court “sealed” the information because it was never directly connected to Caylee’s murder.  If highly prejudicial information is not strongly related to proof of the crime, which is to say, the witnesses have not explained why the evidence helps to prove or disprove guilt, the court would be compelled to exclude the information as unduly prejudicial without sufficient probative force.

The second reason is that the feds are involved in investigating the porn issues and they want to be able to proceed on these charges against Casey, and perhaps others, in federal court.  If the evidence had been allowed in during the murder trial, Casey’s acquittal would have precluded retrial on the porn charges under double jeopardy principles….

Under the Supreme Court’s “same facts” Blockburger test, if the state offered any evidence of Casey Anthony’s involvement with prostitution or child pornography, those facts could not be used against her again, in a pornography prosecution, by state or federal officials….

But now that that she’s been acquitted, the truth should be told about what was sealed during trial, and what’s going on with the feds….

http://blogs.wickedlocal.com/front-page/#axzz1QbbpsUzU

Feds: Child pornography victims get younger, violence increases
Jan. 31, 2011
DETROIT — Child pornography isn’t just more pervasive, it’s getting even uglier.

Federal prosecutors here say they have witnessed the disturbing trend with the kids getting younger — toddlers and infants as young as 6 months old — turning up in photos and videos.

And the assaults are getting worse. It’s not just still images of children in the nude, they say.

“There’s a misconception in the public arena that these are mainly still images of children without clothes on. Well, the truth is that the majority of the pictures that are traded among these guys almost inevitably involve a child being either raped, or being forced to perform some type of sexual act on an adult or child,” said Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Mulcahy, chief of the general crimes unit in the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit.

Child porn lovers live in your neighborhood

They aren’t just creepy loners.

Seemingly normal people — doctors, coaches, authors, engineers, teens — are charged with possessing and making child porn, a $3-billion-a-year industry that the federal government has labeled the new silent child abuse….

Currently, there are an estimated 100,000 known child porn websites, according to Brigham Young University Women’s Services. Child porn accounts for one-quarter of the $12-billion U.S. porn industry….

The Justice Department report says complaints of online enticement of children have more than tripled from 2004 to 2008, and complaints of child prostitution rose tenfold. Since 2006, more than 8,600 people have been prosecuted at the federal level on child porn charges….

http://www.dailyrecord.com/article/CN/20110131/NJNEWS18/110131042/Feds-Child-pornography-victims-get-younger-violence-increases

 

Survivorship Ritual Abuse Webinars

You do not have to be a Survivorship member to attend a Webinar — we welcome all survivors, as well as partners, friends, therapists, clergy, and other supporters. And a Webinar is a very good introduction to Survivorship’s philosophy and resources.

OUR NEXT WEBINAR
Saturday, March 26
12 noon Pacific Time
Trish Fotheringham
“Inner Structures – Settle In and Get Comfortable.”

Trish was born into a female-only matriarchal healing cult and an ancient patriarchal family clan who were connected to a variety of organized crime groups, including a group of wealthy political elite and their child pornography rings and child sex slave trafficking network. She is a 50-year-old Canadian Survivor of extreme abuse and trauma that included MKUltra-style ritual abuse, torture, mind control, and experimentation.

Trish will share some of the ways she handled her many different implanted Inner structures and tell how she, as an adult, intentionally self-created more structures that served healing purposes. The Webinar will be designed for dialog and interaction rather than as a lecture.

COST
Last year, Webinars cost $20.00. Now we have changed to a sliding scale so that each person can pay what they are able to. The scale starts at $50.00 and, in $5.00 increments, goes down to $0.00 (full scholarship). There is no longer any need to request a full or partial scholarship — you make the decision yourself. (Please factor in the cost of a telephone call to the East Coast.) 

We do ask you, if you have a full or partial scholarship, to help publicize our Webinar series.

The PayPal button is under the description of the Webinar at http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html

REGISTRATION
Registration closes Thursday evening January 17. If you wish to pay by PayPal, go to http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html Otherwise, send your check to:

SURVIVORSHIP
Family Justice Center
470 27th Street
Oakland, CA 94612

To reserve a space in the Webinar, e-mail Shamai at shamai@survivorship.org and give her this information:

1.Your name
2. The Webinar you wish to attend: “Safety for Ritual Abuse and Mind Control Survivors” on February 19 and/or one of the Webinars listed below
3. Amount and method of payment  (check, PayPal, money order)
4. Your preferred e-mail address (so we can send you instructions)
5. The name you will be using for the Webinar. (This does not have to be your real name or your message board screen name.)

FUTURE WEBINARS
Saturday, April 9
12 noon Pacific Time
Staci Sprout, LICSW, CSAT
“Authentic Sexuality after Extreme Sexual Abuse: Part II: Tools You Can Use.”

This Webinar follows up what was begun in the December Webinar. (If you were not there I recommend reviewing it on the Survivorship Website). We will take the concepts of sexual addiction/anorexia in the context of surviving extreme trauma to the next practical level: how to assess your current sexual health today, how to organize daily nurturing tasks to improve sexual self-esteem, what is the role of making love with yourself/masturbation, and what are your visions for a healthy tomorrow?

We will discuss sexuality in both general and specific terms.
Staci Sprout works as an individual group psychotherapist at Sexual Recovery Services in Washington state. (See www.sexualrecoveryservices.com for more information.). She is a Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist (CSAT). She is also a survivor of extreme trauma and will share “what’s worked” along her personal journey of recovery as part of the presentation. Caution will be taken to promote safety by not using explicit language or stories, though content at times may be triggering for survivors.

Saturday, May 21
Note: This Webinar will be at 9 AM Pacific Time
Adah Sachs
“Attachment: How Did It Harm You, and How Can That Harm Be Healed?”

This Webinar will look at abuse and torture (at all ages) in the context of attachment theory. It will explain that the worst damage caused by abuse is not to the body, but to the victim’s attachment system; and that the damaged attachment system continues to cause destruction in the person’s life, sometimes forever. We’ll then look at healing the attachment system.

Adah Sachs is an attachment-based psychoanalytic psychotherapist. She is a visiting faculty and a training supervisor at the Bowlby Centre and at the Centre for Child Mental Health and a consultant psychotherapist at the Clinic for Dissociative Studies, London. She lectures and publishes widely on trauma and dissociation and maintains a small private practice. Her co-edited book, “Forensic Aspects of DID,” was published in 2008.

PAST WEBINARS
Survivorship members may listen to past Webinars for free in the members’ section. (For information on joining Survivorship, go to http://www.survivorship.org/about/membership.html

Complete details on all our Webinars are at http://www.survivorship.org/webinars.html

Pope’s comments on clerical abuse stir fury in victims

By MOLLY MULDOON IrishCentral.com Staff Writer December 22, 2010
Clerical abuse victims around the world have reacted in fury to Pope Benedict’s claim yesterday that as recently as the 1970s pedophilia wasn’t considered an “absolute evil”.

During his traditional Christmas address last Monday to cardinals and other religious officials in Rome, Pope Benedict XVI also said that child pornography was considered “normal” by society.

“In the 1970s, paedophilia was theorised as something fully in conformity with man and even with children,” the Pope said. “It was maintained — even within the realm of Catholic theology — that there is no such thing as evil in itself or good in itself. There is only a ‘better than’ and a ‘worse than’. Nothing is good or bad in itself.”

He added that clerical abuse allegations in the past year reached “an unimaginable dimension” which has required the Catholic church to accept the “humiliation”….”We cannot remain silent about the context of these times in which these events have come to light,” he said, citing the growth of child pornography “that seems in some way to be considered more and more normal by society,” he said.
http://www.irishcentral.com/news/Popes-comments-on-clerical-abuse-stir-fury-in-victims-112302159.html

57 men charged in international child porn ring

57 men charged in international child porn ring Dec. 8, 2010

“He said there was “hundred of thousands, if not millions, of images.”

Twenty-five Canadians are among 57 men arrested after authorities shut down an international child-porn network , Toronto police announced Wednesday.
Twenty-five children were rescued, 12 of whom are from Canada, in the year-long investigation into the online trading of child pornography.

Det. Paul Krawczyk, from the child exploitation section of Toronto Police’s Sex Crimes Unit, said 57 people including 25 Canadians were arrested on charges of child pornography as part of a massive investigation known as Project Sanctuary.
A total of 218 charges were laid, ranging from making, possessing and distributing child pornography to luring a child under the age of 16 and sexual assault….

Krawczyk would not discuss the undercover operation beyond saying the suspects were connected by the way they shared the images online. He said there was “hundred of thousands, if not millions, of images.” Police said some the images showed children in their infancy. “There was a lot of very young child pornography,” Det. Const. Janelle Blackadar of the Toronto Police Sex Crimes Unit told CTV Toronto. “By young, I mean, infant, toddler abuse….”

Over the past year, 26 U.S. men have been arrested on 56 charges, 25 Canadian men have been arrested and face 131 charges and six European men have been arrested and face 13 charges.
The Canadian men who have been charged range from 20 to 68 years of age. They face a total of 131 charges after the execution of 31 search warrants across the country.
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/Canada/20101208/child-exploitation-project-sanctuary-101208/

Newark archbishop shielded at least 4 priests, child and ritual abuse newsletter

child abuse and ritual abuse newsletter is online at
http://ritualabuse.us/2010/12/issue-96-january-2011/
This issue contains information on clergy abuse, Cornwall, Facebook – Child Pornography – NAMBLA, Amazon – Pedophile’s Guide, child prostitution, child sex ring, Duplessis Orphans, Survivorship Surveys,  medical experimentation, ritual abuse and clergy abuse, mind control research, Nazis in the US, CIA Human Experiments Case, Oprah – MPD, Oprah – male survivors of abuse, sexual abuse – psychosis

Newark archbishop shielded at least 4 priests accused of sexual abuse December 05, 2010  Jeff Diamant/The Star-Ledger

Eight years ago, Newark Archbishop John J. Myers stood among the nation’s bishops at a landmark gathering in Dallas and helped craft a policy intended to cleanse the priesthood of pedophiles and restore trust among shaken American Catholics….Star-Ledger review of the archbishop’s record since 2002 shows Myers on at least four occasions has shielded priests accused of sexual abuse against minors and one adult. In the four instances, the priests have either admitted improper sexual contact, pleaded guilty to crimes stemming from accusations of sexual misconduct or been permanently barred from ministry by the archdiocese after allegations of sexual misconduct.
The archdiocese also wrote a letter of recommendation for one of the priests, a week after it learned he was accused of breaking into a woman’s home in Florida and possibly assaulting her.

From one perspective, the newspaper’s findings suggest Myers continues to take a cautious hand in publicly naming priests. The findings, coupled with testimony from a 2009 deposition, show the issue weighs heavily on Myers.

From another view, the archbishop has failed to live up to the guidelines and spirit of what was set forth in Dallas….

Myers’ spokesman, James Goodness, said the archbishop has lived up to his promises of 2002 and that the archdiocese has carefully followed procedures meant to bar abusive priests from ministry.
http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/12/newark_archbishop_shielded_at.html

Facebook and Child Pornography, Federal crackdown on child prostitution

Facebook and Child Pornography
By James R. Marsh on November 9, 2010
Infamous child pornographer …whose trademark….is a longtime, well-recognized tag for hardcore child pornography, has a Facebook interest group with almost 300 fans.
Unfortunately, there’s lots more thanks to an anonymous reader of this blog who assembled a damning cornucopia of profiles and links to such Facebook interest groups as “incest,” “preteen hardcore,” “our little group,” and “lolita.”….All of this material was assembled in a few hours by an amateur slooth.
http://www.childlaw.us/2010/11/facebook-still-promoting-cp.html

Federal crackdown on child prostitution results in 884 arrests By Michael Martinez, CNN November 9, 2010 (CNN) – A three-day federal crackdown on child prostitution rings across the country has resulted in the recovery of 69 children and the arrest of 884 people, including 99 pimps, federal authorities said Monday….
The three-day federal sweep, called Operation Cross Country V, involved 40 cities nationwide and is part of the Innocence Lost National Initiative, authorities said. “Child prostitution continues to be a significant problem in our country, as evidenced by the number of children rescued through the continued efforts of our crimes against children task forces,” said Shawn Henry, executive assistant director of the FBI’s Criminal, Cyber, Response and Service Branch, in a written statement.  http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/11/08/us.child.prostitution/index.html

San Diego clergy abuse allegations, How Good People Turn Evil, Facebook

has :

Documents from the San Diego Settlement
Unsealed Calif. church docs show abuse allegations
Facebook’s Child Pornography Problem
Understanding How Good People Turn Evil – Zimbardo

Documents from the San Diego Settlement
On October 22, 2010, Judge William C. Pate ordered the release of documents relating to the sexual abuse of children by priests in the Diocese of San Diego. This document release was a nonmonetary provision of the San Diego settlement, as ordered on August 29, 2008 by Judge Emilie Elias, of the Los Angeles Superior Court.

On this page, we present all the documents released by Judge Pate’s order, and during this week, we will post the crucial documents individually for easier download. Some of these documents are also available from the website of the Zalkin Law Firm, which was our source for many of the files. The text of Judge Pate’s order and the files for ten of the priests were provided by attorney Anthony DeMarco.
http://www.bishop-accountability.org/docs/san_diego/

Unsealed Calif. church docs show abuse allegations
Sunday, October 24, 2010 AP Online By GILLIAN FLACCUS
SAN DIEGO – Attorneys for nearly 150 people who claim sexual abuse by Roman Catholic priests made nearly 10,000 pages of previously sealed internal church documents public Sunday, revealing at least one previously unknown decades-old case in which a priest under police investigation was allowed to leave the U.S. after the Diocese of San Diego intervened. After a three-year legal battle over the Diocese of San Diego’s internal records, a retired San Diego Superior Court judge ruled late Friday that they could be made public. The records are from the personnel files of 48 priests who were either credibly accused or convicted of sexual abuse or were named in a civil lawsuit.

The 144 plaintiffs settled with the diocese in 2007 for nearly $200 million, but the agreement stipulated that an independent judge would review the priests’ sealed personnel records and determine what could be made public.
The files show what the diocese knew about abusive priests, starting decades before any allegations became public, and that some church leaders shuffled priests from parish to parish or overseas despite credible complaints against them.

“We encourage all Catholics, all members of the community, to look for these documents,” attorney Anthony DeMarco said at a news conference. “These documents demonstrate years and years and decades of concerted action that has allowed this community’s children to be victimized, and it is not until the community looks at these documents that this cycle is ever going to be ended.”
http://newsystocks.com/news/3763283
Welcome to LuciferEffect.org, official web site of The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil (Random House, 2007). In this book, I summarize more than 30 years of research on factors that can create a “perfect storm” which leads good people to engage in evil actions. This transformation of human character is what I call the “Lucifer Effect,” named after God’s favorite angel, Lucifer, who fell from grace and ultimately became Satan.

Rather than providing a religious analysis, however, I offer a psychological account of how ordinary people sometimes turn evil and commit unspeakable acts. As part of this account, The Lucifer Effect tells, for the first time, the full story behind the Stanford Prison Experiment, a now-classic study I conducted in 1971. In that study, normal college students were randomly assigned to play the role of guard or inmate for two weeks in a simulated prison, yet the guards quickly became so brutal that the experiment had to be shut down after only six days. – Philip Zimbardo
Professor Emeritus    Stanford University http://www.lucifereffect.com/

Facebook’s Child Pornography Problem By James R. Marsh  October 24, 2010 An ongoing FoxNews.com investigation has revealed that Facebook is failing to prevent child predators from posting suggestive and potentially illegal photographs of children on its website. The world’s largest social network employs content filters that automatically scan for basic keywords commonly associated with child exploitive material. Those filters, if they are properly employed, should flag much of the offensive material found on the site, cybersecurity experts say. But in a lengthy telephone interview on Oct. 6, FoxNews.com took two Facebook executives on a click-by-click tour of their own website, bringing them face-to-face with some of its vile contents and forcing them to admit that their efforts to block child predators were not working.

During a 90-minute phone interview with Facebook spokesman Simon Axten and the company’s chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, the two executives were guided by FoxNews.com through the site’s seamy subculture – an encounter that left Sullivan sounding dumbfounded, unaware of and unable to explain the extremely graphic content on the site. http://www.childlaw.us/2010/10/facebooks-child-pornography-pr.html