By Par Centner, AFAJ staff writer

October 2002 – They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. Ephesians 4:18,19

It’s the only explanation – nothing else makes sense. What father and mother, unless their hearts and minds had become completely darkened and hardened by sin, could possibly be photographed in sex acts with their own children and then use the Internet to swap – or worse, sell – the lurid results to others? Unbelievably, it is being done, and far more often than you might think. 

In early August, U.S. Customs Service officials announced that a total of 20 alleged members of an international child molestation ring had been arrested in the United States and Europe as part of an ongoing investigation called Operation Hamlet. Forty-five children worldwide, including 37 in the United States, had been rescued from the nightmare of abuse and placed with relatives or in foster care. The children ranged in age from 2 to 14. 

“These crimes are beyond the pale,” said Customs Commissioner Robert C. Bonner. “What is particularly disturbing about this case is that the majority [80%] of the people who have been charged were actually the parents who were sexually exploiting their own children.”

It all started late last year when the Danish National Police (DNP) contacted the U.S. Customs CyberSmuggling Center seeking help. Save the Children, an Internet watchdog group, had made the DNP aware of images posted on the Internet of a man sexually abusing a young girl. The DNP identified the man as Eggert Jensen by tracing a logo on the shirt he wore in the photos. 

Further investigation revealed that Eggert was molesting his own nine-year-old daughter. Danish police arrested Eggert and his wife, Bente. A search of their computer files led to the arrest in January of Lloyd Emmerson, a chiropractor from Clovis, California. Two other Californians, Paul Whitmore and Brooke Rowland, both of San Diego, were also arrested in January. U.S. Customs officials say additional arrests are expected. 

Fifteen members of “The Club,” as they called themselves, were charged in an indictment in U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of California. Nine of the people indicted were Americans and the other six Europeans. They are from California, Texas, Idaho, Florida, Washington state, South Carolina, Kansas, Denmark, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. 

Of those indicted, Harry Eldon Tschernetzki of Spokane had pled guilty on August 1. The charges against him involved explicit photographs of him with his daughter, who is about five. At this writing, he has not been sentenced but faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years in prison, according to Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Shively. Another American, Sean Bradley of Reno, Nevada, committed suicide prior to the filing of formal charges.

The indictment alleges that members of the ring used the Internet to trade messages and request photographs from one another of specific sexual poses. One man posed naked with an underage girl. They also made other perverted requests, such as asking for an audiotape of a child being spanked. Incredibly, another man placed his own children in the arms of another pedophile by swapping them like baseball cards.

“I’ve rarely seen crimes as despicable and repugnant,” said Bonner. “If this isn’t unusual, God help us.”  

A survey of prison inmates who have committed violent crimes reveals that American children are extremely vulnerable to the sexual whims and sadistic fantasies of men who have become increasingly depraved in their lust for innocence. The information below is taken from the 1996 survey:

• 1 in 5 violent offenders in a state prison have victimized a child:
• More than half the violent crimes committed involved children age 12 or younger.
• Two-thirds of all prisoners convicted of rape or sexual assault committed their crime against a child.
• One-third of all child victimizers had committed their crime against their own child. 
• About half had a relationship with the victim as a friend, acquaintance, or relative other than offspring.
• Three-fourths of the violent crimes against children took place either in the victim’s or offender’s home.

U.S. Dept. of Justice