Customs Agent Plumbs Depths Of Internet Porn Real Predators Found Lurking In A Virtual World

The Internet chat group was called “forcedgirlsex.”

U.S. customs agent Marcus Lawson’s explanation was simple: “The seven people in this chat room are interested in child rape.”

He scrolled through a list of other rooms. There was “mom’n’sonsex” and “kinkypreteensex” and hundreds more, a lair for the malevolent appetites of rape, torture and mutilation of children.

Here, pedophiles reassure one another that their actions and appetites are normal. They swap fantasies and photos.

“It’s disgusting,” said Lawson, an agent in the Spokane office of the U.S. Customs Service.

But into these rooms he goes, masquerading as a woman, a couple, a child, a rape victim or a rapist. He chats with the bad guys, trying to earn their trust so he is included in their illegal acts.

Two weeks ago, Lawson’s work led to the arrest of Barry Kottler, a 30-year-old New Mexico doctor accused of sending photos of child porn and then coming to Spokane, hoping to have sex with the 8-year-old daughter of a woman he chatted with on the Internet. The “woman” was Lawson.

Nationwide, Lawson is one of only a few dozen agents who specialize in child pornography investigations, said Tim Renouard, his boss.

Lawson is in Spokane because he wants to be, not because the region is rife with pedophiles. With cooperation from law enforcement agencies in other countries, Lawson can work on cases around the globe.

Locally, Lawson works with Dennis Walter and Jerry Keller, Spokane Police Department detectives who handle child exploitation crimes.

The police also investigate Internet pornography, but not to the same extent.

“It is really hard to get online and find someone putting porn on the Internet (specifically) from Spokane,” Keller said.

Lawson has worked child exploitation cases for 10 years, but only since 1995 has he been investigating online. He figures his Internet work has netted 50 to 75 arrests.

“The work is very disturbing emotionally. One pedophile causes more damage to a community than any 10 drug dealers I’ve ever met,” said Lawson, 41. “But it’s also rewarding because it makes a very real difference.”

He tries to make a difference outside of the office, too. Lawson founded The Force Against Child Abuse, a nonprofit organization that works on a variety of child-abuse issues.

When Lawson started handling child-exploitation cases in 1988, most of the child porn was in magazines and on videotape.

“But while serving search warrants on these guys, we started to notice computers in their homes,” he said.

At first the computers were for keeping mailing lists. By 1992 or 1993, the technology to send photos through modems and phone lines was in the palms of pornographers.

“Almost overnight it exploded into an Internet crime,” Lawson said. “When we started getting online in 1995, it was already well-established.”

Customs agents have a history of investigating child pornography. Much of it is shipped from overseas into the United States for white American males - the world’s largest consumers of child porn.

“It’s just like cocaine in that respect,” Lawson said.

Roughly 70 percent of the images Lawson finds on the Internet are produced in the Third World. Large numbers of orphans, lax law enforcement and governments placing a low priority on children make kids easy prey in those countries, he said.

Not only does the Third World provide the photos, but in some countries pedophiles can take holidays where they are provided children to molest.

A spin-off from this “international sex-tour trade” is photos of white males engaged in sex with children - the favored image of American pedophiles, he said.

Before investigating child exploitation, Lawson figured that pedophiles led lonely, isolated lives. Then he saw the chat rooms.

“Now with the Internet they can find thousands of others who think like they do, will reassure them and tell them this is OK,” he said.

Though these conversations and photo swaps occur electronically, most are not found on the World Wide Web with its familiar www. addresses.

“I’d hate to see the Web tarnished by this stuff,” Lawson said.

Because Web sites are registered and can be tracked, pedophiles don’t use them. Instead, they jump into an electronic ether of chat rooms that exist only when occupied on various electronic networks.

Lawson follows and tries to strike up a conversation.

“It’s really hard; these people are really bad,” Lawson said. “It’s like trying to have a conversation with Freddy Krueger.”

, DataTimes MEMO: The Force Against Child Abuse, a nonprofit organization that works on a variety of child-abuse issues, can be reached at www.endabuse.com or by calling 1-888-747-SAFE.

This sidebar appeared with the story: SAFETY NET Some pedophiles prowl chat rooms popular with children and teenagers - such as discussions about video games. They try to form relationships and arrange meetings, said Marcus Lawson, special agent with the U.S. Customs Service. “I think it is a good idea for parents to have a clue as to who their kids are talking to on the Internet,” Lawson said. He also recommended parents warn their children never to give personal information - phone numbers, names or addresses - over the Internet. “They should know that someone in a chat room may not be who they claim to be - they may have an intent to harm.”