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StumbleSub teacher, UNLV student arrested on child porn charges
Published Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008 | 5:15 p.m.
Updated Thursday, Nov. 6, 2008 | 5:47 p.m.
A Las Vegas man who has been working as a substitute teacher at a Las Vegas charter school and is a student at UNLV has been arrested on federal charges of possession, receipt and distribution of child pornography.
U.S. Attorney Greg Brower of Nevada said 26-year-old Nahm Thai was arrested in Las Vegas on Monday and is charged with two counts of transporting child pornography, one count of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography.
"Combating the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes is a priority of this office," Brower said. "If you use the Internet to participate in this type of crime, you will be prosecuted."
According to a criminal complaint, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agents in Seattle, Wash., began an investigation involving the distribution of child pornography on the Internet, specifically using Google's "Hello" program in March 2007. The agents discovered that between January 2007 and January 2008 Thai and a Virginia resident had been communicating online regarding the receipt and distribution of child pornography images.
The agents found that they two had exchanged over 4,800 pictures, most of which contained child pornography.
ICE agents executed a search warrant at Thai's Las Vegas residence on Oct. 30 and seized computers and equipment containing several hundred images and videos of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
According to the defendant's parents who were present during the search, Thai currently works as a substitute teacher. He is also a senior majoring in education at UNLV. A spokeswoman for the Clark County School District said Thursday that early media reports that Thai was a substitute teacher for the district are incorrect. The spokeswoman said Thai is a student teacher at Andre Agassi College Preparatory Academy, a charter school. Charter schools handle their own hiring and aren't staffed by district employees.
If convicted, Thai faces five to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the transportation and receipt of child pornography counts, and up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine on the possession of child pornography count.
The public is reminded that a criminal complaint contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt.
"People who download and possess child pornography put our youth at risk," said Richard Curry, assistant special agent in charge for the ICE Office of Investigations in Las Vegas. "This case is particularly troubling because of the suspect's position as someone young people look up to and respect. Those who think they can engage in these kinds of activities and escape justice by hiding in cyberspace should be forewarned that ICE is using every tool at its disposal to protect our children from those who seek to sexually exploit them."
ICE's involvement in this case is part of the ongoing initiative known as Operation Predator, targeting those who prey upon and sexually exploit children nationwide.
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In reference: "Combating the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes is a priority of this office," Brower said. "If you use the Internet to participate in this type of crime, you will be prosecuted."
A word of warning to the millions of porn visitors that have never wandered into the search for child porn, and think that the above statement is not for them.
As I tell parents and teens across the country, one sign of a porn addiction is that a person will begin to search for sites that are more and more repulsive" even to themselves; when adult-hetero porn no longer triggers the feel good endorphins" an addict will move on until he finds some new fetish that will. This is a warning to those who think that to view porn (other than child porn) is OK. I'm pretty certain that friends of 26-year-old Nahm Thai, were completely caught off guard and feel that his viewing child porn was completely out of character for him.
As co-founder of My Internet Doorman, a company dedicated to educating parents and teens about the True Dangers of Internet Porn, I have heard many first hand accounts of adults who have lost their jobs, their spouses, and their self respect because of this porn parasite.
Several clients have compared porn to cocaine, in that they will risk anything to get a fix; this clearly indicates a loss of control.
It is important to filter the internet and avoid exposure to inappropriate material. The average age of exposure is only 11 years old" and in most cases occurs while doing homework! Kids and adults are forced to navigate their way around a minefield of porn traps such as kidpicks.com a misspelled porn portal that catches kids and parents looking for www.kidspicks.com. The fact that traditional filters don't do the job, should be a clue as to how difficult it is to hit this moving target (hundreds of new porn sites per day).
Seeing that educating parents and teens was not enough; we decided to provide the first fully managed internet filter to provide the necessary assistance in protecting oneself and ones family from inappropriate material on the web and porn addiction. An encouraging trend we are witnessing is that a growing number of adults want to block porn for themselves. They are finding that our fully managed filter service is exactly what they were looking for.
Mr. M - My Internet Doorman
Links:
http://www.myinternetdoorman.com
http://www.myinternetdoorman.org/pages/D...