The Emporia Gazette

May 27, 2012

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Whether Marc Goodman is prosecuting defendants in court or attending a professional conference, there is always something to remind him that sexual predators are stalking children. That makes him worry about the safety of children in Emporia.

“Any conference I’ve ever been to has been replete with studies of how the predators work,” Goodman said. “This is as real as can be. They don’t have to be coming from Indiana or New York. They’re here.”

The gravity of that knowledge has prompted Goodman to take a proactive role in helping educate parents and other adults on ways they can help protect children from sexual exploitation.

Goodman decided that, as a policy of his office, he was not going to be silent; he was going to do something about it.

He said there have always been cases of 14- and 15-year-olds engaging in sexual relations with boyfriends or girlfriends who are over 16 years of age.

“We reached a level where we weren’t even sure that people knew what the age of consent was,” he said. “If they’re under 16, don’t do it. Just don’t do it. With no prior record, you’re going to prison.”

The 16-year-old or older half of the pair can be charged with sexual offenses against a child. So can the predators who seek out children and manipulate them to satisfy their own needs, and Goodman is seeing such charges coming through Lyon County District Court.

“And it was our conclusion, or my conclusion, that there was no real educational means out there to try and teach or inform parents, or any kids who wanted to listen — but primarily parents — of the dangers that their children actually face,” Goodman said.

“I looked around and I thought, ‘Where in the world do you go to reach all of these parents?’ ”

The school district teaches sex education curriculum, he said, but nothing about the law is included.

“They don’t aim their courses at predators, you know, Goodman said. “I didn’t fault them because they’re bound by their curriculums. It doesn’t work that easily for teachers.”

The next logical step “was to head for the ministerial alliance, because there was a group that would have access to a high number of parents,” he said. “And then I wasn’t sure where all we were going to go next.”

Opportunity presented itself when Mike Crouch, executive director of Emporians for Drug Awareness, mentioned that he had booked a nationally known speaker on the topic, who would appear in Emporia at no charge because of federal money provided to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The speaker, Craig E. Hill, a retired police major, had been scheduled to present day-long training to law enforcement officers; that quickly was expanded to include a public presentation for parents and other interested adults.

“From there, it just springboarded,” he said.

Goodman is determined to disseminate as much information as possible to remind parents and grandparents of the old risks that continue and the new risks that have arisen as technology opens doors to other modes of approaching children.

That may mean that parents will need to learn more about their children’s activities on web sites, with cell phones and cell phone cameras.

MySpace, FaceBook and other youth-oriented Internet web sites make it easier for sexual predators to establish false identities, communicate with children and set up encounters that can lead to sexual exploitation.

“They go to chat rooms ... they go to text because these kids are naive; even though they don’t think so, they are. They are not worldly,” he said. “I think (parents) need to be aware of just what that computer and that cell phone open up.”

Goodman mentioned a television show, “Dateline,” that exposed predators as well as Internet’s power in connecting them with youngsters.

The show broadcast a series of programs in which sexual predators established chat relationships with what they believed were young teens. In reality, they were adults representing themselves as children as part of a sting operation. The predators ultimately made overtures to meet with the “children” for illicit sex and, as they arrived at a pre-arranged site and made their intent known, the predators were surprised by a “Dateline” host and arrested as they left the meeting spot.

Those types of rendezvous are becoming more and more commonplace, and Goodman is hoping that next month’s presentation by Hill of National Missing and Exploited Children will have a major effect on parental awareness.

“I have stressed and stressed that whether it’s your grandchildren or it’s your kids ... any parents from first grade up need to go to this because their children are becoming majorly more proficient in computer use than we are. And I keep trying to stress that ‘Dateline’ isn’t a contrived show.”

Goodman said that younger teens are particularly vulnerable, whether from a boyfriend/girlfriend or a predator who knows how to manipulate for his or her purposes. In many cases, alcohol and drugs are used to lower inhibitions and attain cooperation and participation from the young ones.

“I’m not trying to moralize as to why. That’s not my job. What my job is is to get the public in Lyon County to understand that this is no fake thing. There are lots of kids at-risk,” he said.

Goodman currently is handling multiple cases against a man accused of exploiting three girls between the ages of 13 and 15 years.

According to court documents, the 32-year-old man allegedly gave the girls alcohol or drugs and had sexual relations with them repeatedly; he is accused of bringing in at least one additional adult man for sexual relations with a girl while all three were present in the room, the complaint showed.

Goodman could not talk about details of the case beyond open court records, but he said he continues to be concerned that victims or people who have information about similar activities may not have come forward, and he wishes that they would.

“We need to know who they are, and in that sense, we still need the public to step forward and tell us,” he said. “I don’t care if they have to put their own child on the spot, or it’s something that their child has heard. We know he has adult associates. But who are they?”

The beginning of the effort to squelch sexual exploitation of children may encourage those with knowledge to come forward, while simultaneously provided education for parents who want to keep their children as safe as possible from predators.

“I’m just trying to say the community needs to organize a response,” Goodman said. “It’s not just me barking at one case.”