Saturday, December 01, 2007

Only Ones Effect

This is a disturbing story- and proof that the "only ones" effect extends beyond the privileged class to their spouses too.

Atlanta police knew seven years ago that a police sergeant's husband may have been paying young girls for sex and producing child pornography, but failed to investigate the allegations, federal authorities said.

He has since been arrested by the FBI and faces charges- of producing child pornography "relating to photographs that depict his explicit sexual activity with numerous young girls."

For these terrible crimes, preying on the most vulnerable section of society, he faces a measly 20 years in prison. It makes one wonder how many of those children could have been protected had the Atlanta police investigated the husband of one of their own.

An employee of a photo processing company alerted Atlanta police about Crane in 2000, saying he was concerned about photos he developed for him.

The pictures, including images of the 11 girls believed to be between the ages of 12 and 15, were given to police between 2000 and 2002 by the photo processing company, Nahmias said. They were not turned over to federal authorities, however, until last month.

That there was a cover-up is not in question- not only by the police themselves but by the police officer wife of the animal-

In 2003, Crane's wife, Atlanta police Sgt. Tanya Crane, "allegedly got a call from an unidentified person at APD headquarters that APD had photographs of her husband engaged in sexually explicit conduct with young girls," said the statement from Nahmias' office.

"Crane's wife said she found some explicit photographs in her house and burned the photographs and negatives."

Atlanta police chief Richard Pennington is, it seems, responsible for involving Federal authorities in the case-

"When the incident came to my attention in October, I immediately ordered a full inquiry and invited the FBI to assist with the investigation. People will be held accountable and responsible for their actions, or inactions, as the case may be."

Thus far the monster's wife has not been charged with, say, perverting the course of justice or the like but has been place on "administrative leave." There's also no information on who alerted the Chief to the crimes taking place- or why they did not begin a criminal investigation themselves. Obviously once the photo lab alerted police of the crimes some kind of report must have been filed- so how many members of the Atlanta force knew about it? Why did the person who took the complaint not begin an investigation? Were they told not to or did they bury the case themselves?

Seems to me that the Feds have a lot more work to do here- and heads surely should roll for allow this creep to continue to abuse children.

No comments: