CRIME
by Jason Wright
ALL CREDITS
December 07, 2009
NORTH GEORGIA - Federal agents in conjunction with the Roswell Police Department and Forsyth County Sheriff's Office arrested four men Nov. 24 and 25, three of whom are allegedly tied to an international child pornography ring that reached Australia and the Netherlands.
Daryl Demke Original Pic
Authorities are tight-lipped about the case, as federal agents are actively working to tie an untold number of users from around the world to the bust."It is an investigation in its infancy, and we are just dealing within the four corners of the criminal complaints we have right now," said Patrick Crosby, the U.S. Attorney's Office Public Affairs Officer.
According to court documents provided by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Atlanta, Dale Hodges, 27, of Roswell and Joseph Gittings, 24, of Cumming were arrested by federal agents as part of a months-long, international take down of the online pedophile community known as Boylover.net.
Wayne Vernon (click for larger version)
Both remain in federal custody, said U.S. Attorney Jill E. Steinberg. Hodges was denied bond Nov. 29 on charges of possession and receipt of child pornography, while Gittings was denied bond Dec. 2 on charges of distributing child pornography. Both faced Magistrate Court Judge Linda T. Walker in separate hearings.
According to the testimony of Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agent David Westall in the court documents, both Gittings and Hodges admitted to the crimes when arrested.
In conjunction with Gittings' arrest at his Chadwick Drive home Nov. 24, the Forsyth County Sheriff's Office arrested 64-year-old Wayne Vernon, listed in court documents as Gittings' boyfriend. Vernon is charged with manufacturing marijuana and eight counts of possession of a firearm in the commission of a felony.
"Our role was strictly to assist ICE," said Capt. Frank Huggins of the Sheriff's Office. "Our SWAT team made entry into the house and the federal agents placed [Gittings] under arrest. His roommate was apparently growing some marijuana, and that's what he was arrested for."
When Hodges was arrested Nov. 25 at his Old Ferry Way townhome in Roswell, Roswell police also took into custody his 27-year-old next door neighbor, Daryl Demke. According to court documents, both Demke and Hodges were members of the Boylover.net online community.
In a Roswell police report, a detective said Demke allegedly admitted he molested a 9-year-old boy from Dahlonega. According to the incident report, Demkey told the detective that he had "befriended [the 9-year-old] and attempted to be a mature male figure" in the boy's life.
Demke went on to say that in October the boy had stayed over at his home, a frequent occurrence, and the abuse began. Demke apparently confessed to taking pictures of the acts and saved them to his computer.
"After that he confessed to all this stuff," said McGee.
In the court documents Westall testifies Australian Federal Police began "Operation Caledon," which resulted in the arrest of two senior members of the Boylover.net online community. Three months later, ICE agents learned from a source connected to the case that Gittings was allegedly an administrator of the Boylover.net Web site and its second-most senior member.
According to the testimony, Gittings allegedly built the Web site's server in the United States, but shipped it to the Netherlands "when he thought there was law enforcement interest in the Web site."
The site where that server is kept in the Netherlands was raided by European authorities Nov. 25, the same day Hodges' townhome was searched, said the agent.
In October, a confidential source close to Gittings gave agents two DVDs allegedly containing child pornography that Gittings had created for him. While at Gittings' home,
the source said he had seen on the computer used to burn the DVDs a file named "Jagdawg," Hodges' screen name.
Wayne Vernon Original Pic
Gittings told the source that the images in the file, purportedly of two 10-year-old boys, were allegedly given to him by Hodges. The source also said Hodges, a tutor at the Huntington Learning Center on Windward Parkway in Alpharetta, was an administrator on the Boylover.net site who had "introduced young boys to other pedophiles that he has met on the Internet."
George Gordon, a spokesman for the Alpharetta Department of Public Safety, said no reports exist of parents complaining about Hodges.
Connie Ramey, the owner of Alpharetta's Huntington Learning Center, said Hodges worked part-time at the business and only intermittently as he continued his education at the University of Georgia, explored entering the Navy and tried to become a substitute teacher.
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