Task force arrests three suspects on sex charges

Jen Lawson

Thursday, March 6, 2003 | 11:32 a.m.

For the first time the local Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force arrested a married couple on charges of using the Internet to lure a 14-year-old girl into having sex with them.

But the "teenage girl" with whom Marc and Karen Skewes were allegedly chatting was actually an undercover investigator.

They were arrested Monday at their Henderson home and are being held in the Clark County Detention Center on multiple charges of using technology to lure children and attempting to sexually assault a child. Marc Skewes was also arrested on child pornography charges.

"This is the first husband and wife team we've arrested, and the first female," Metro Police Sgt. Russ Shoemaker said, adding that the task force has made 11 Internet-related child porn arrests since October. "We're becoming more and more proactive on the Internet."

The task force, composed of four FBI agents and four Metro Police officers, arrested another man Feb. 20 as a result of a separate investigation.

Michael Buchko, 39, was arrested at a local hotel where he expected to meet a Wyoming woman and her two daughters, ages 7 and 10, with the purpose of having sex with the girls. He was booked into the detention center and has been released on bail.

In both cases, the suspects were trolling chat rooms looking for children, Metro Police Lt. Jeff Carlson said.

"They were in chat rooms looking for their sexual preference, not knowing that they were talking to police officers," Carlson said.

The Skewes e-mailed pornographic photographs and live web camera images of themselves having sex with each other to a Las Vegas investigator, believing the recipient was a 14-year-old girl.

They had been communicating with the "girl" via e-mail and instant messaging for several weeks, Shoemaker said.

"They were talking about meeting, but we never did set up a meeting," Carlson said. "We had enough information for the luring charges, so we got a search warrant and arrested them."

Karen Skewes is a longtime resident of the Las Vegas area. She works as a circulation assistant for the Clark County Library District and is currently on leave, library spokeswoman Pat Marvel said.

She has children from a previous marriage who live elsewhere, Shoemaker said, and investigators have no indication that the Skewes did anything inappropriate with them.

Mark Skewes moved to Las Vegas from England three years ago and is on disability.

Buchko's arrest came as a result of a joint investigation between the local task force and a similar task force in Wyoming.

Buchko encountered Flint Waters of the Wyoming Investigation Department in a chat room, but he thought Waters was a woman with two daughters. Buchko asked if he could have sex with the girls and Waters played along.

Waters contacted Las Vegas investigators and they arranged a meeting at a local hotel a few days later, where Buchko was arrested on charges of using technology to lure children, distribution of child pornography, possession of child porn and attempted lewdness of a minor.

Buchko, who is unemployed, moved to Las Vegas two years ago from Michigan.

The Wyoming task force is funded through the same federal grant as the task force in Las Vegas, Carlson said. There are 34 such task forces around the country.