From the Los Angeles Times

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Activists in Nepal make inroads against servitude for girls

Girls as young as 6 from the Tharu ethnic group have been handed over under a bondage system known as kamlari. The legacy of crushing poverty, caste and debt has left many victims scarred by abuse.

by Mark Magnier, Los Angeles Times

December 28, 2010

Reporting from Ghorahi, Nepal

The scrubbing, cooking and sweeping started as early as 3 a.m. When the landlord's children awoke hours later, the 9-year-old girl got them ready for a school she could only dream of attending.

Afternoons and evenings were spent cutting hay and tending animals. Around 10 p.m., she'd collapse for a few hours before starting again, seven days a week.

It must be my fate, she thought, a feeling eventually replaced by anger and bitterness.

Every January or February she'd see her family for a week, only to watch her father "sell" her back into another year of drudgery for a mere $25. Although some of her friends spent most of their childhood this way, she was lucky: A civic group persuaded her parents to end the arrangement after three years.

For generations, ethnic Tharu girls as young as 6 have been handed over to landlords and brokers under a bondage system known as kamlari . The legacy of crushing poverty, caste and intergenerational debt has left many of the young victims scarred by sexual and emotional abuse.

"The landlord's son beat me many times," said Bishnu Kumari, 17, who was rescued a few years ago. "I felt dirty, unlucky to be born a girl. I was a slave."

These days, however, former kamlari victims are fighting back with notable success, the result of changing laws, activist pressure and nascent democracy in Nepal.

Charity groups have rescued thousands of girls in the last year, generally during the brief period when the annual agreements are renewed, by convincing parents that the practice is unjust, a daughter's education is worthwhile and that there are far less exploitative ways to earn family income.

Since most deals have traditionally been struck during the winter Maghe Sankranti holiday, rescued girls assisted by aid groups are staging street dramas, anti-exploitation marches and musicals. They also mount rescue missions in which parents and landlords are confronted and embarrassed into releasing the girls during the annual festival and other high-profile events.

The approach has proved so successful that the U.S.-based Nepal Youth Foundation estimates that 1,000 Tharu girls remain indentured, most in remote villages or with powerful families in the capital, Katmandu, compared with about 14,000 a decade ago.

Former victims Sunita Chaudhary, 17, and Anita Chaudhary, 18, who aren't related, sing, act and write scripts for the street plays put on here in this rural part of south-central Nepal, drawing on their experience of dire poverty, alcoholic fathers, exploitative landlords and low female social status.

At the end of the drama about girls forced into bondage, the troupe asks audiences who is to blame and how the play should end, sparking spirited debate. Many villagers are illiterate, have never seen a play and forget that it's not real. "People grab me and threaten to beat me up," said Hom Roka, 23, who plays the landlord.

These are complemented by "girls clubs," composed of former victims who urge new kamlari recruits to resist, backed up by adults in the community who have agreed to help fight the practice.

"Sometimes the landlords try to hit us," said Manjita Chaudhary, 21, Sunita's sister and a former indentured servant. "They lie, saying they educate and help the girls. But we usually wear them down."

In addition to carrying psychological scars, rescued girls have missed many years of schooling. Aid groups fund accelerated training to help them get back into mainstream classes, or in extreme cases, enter school for the first time.

A side effect of these efforts has been to swell the number of public classrooms: A dearth of girls restrooms can sometimes force female students having their periods to walk more than a mile to find a secluded spot, and civic groups have had to focus on school construction.

"I have 180 in my classroom," said Anita. "It can be quite difficult to hear the teacher."

A major parental concern is lost income. Although $25 to $50 for a daughter's annual labor may sound piddling to an American, it's huge in these dirt-poor communities. So activists started providing the families of liberated girls with a baby pig or goat, which sells at maturity for a similar amount.

"Who'd have thought a piglet could save a girl?" said Som Paneru, the Nepal Youth Foundation's in-country director.

Another concern, in a region with widespread alcoholism, is that fathers will drink the money away.

"The women told us, under no circumstances give money to the men," said Olga Murray, the charity's founder.

So piglets — or goats for some very poor families who even lack table scraps to feed a pig — are explicitly given to the girls, who, once educated and empowered, can better stand up to the men than the wives.

The poverty fueling the kamlari system was evident in remote Suraikula Narayanpur village, where 12-year-old Asha Chaudhary, who is not related to the other Chaudharys, was recently freed by aid groups after four years of servitude. Her father had leased her out to pay back a loan for fertilizer. The nine-member family lives in a two-room house where several undernourished, half-naked, sore-covered siblings play on the dirt floor as Asha chews on a dirty blue comb.

Life wasn't always so difficult for lower-caste Tharu. A century ago, they controlled these fertile plains near the Indian border, in part because of a natural resistance to malaria that higher castes lacked. After the disease's eradication around 1960, higher-caste people streamed down from the mountains.

Tharu, by their own admission, were easy targets. Largely illiterate, without property records but with a weakness for alcohol, many fell victim to theft and trickery.

Purna Prasad Chaudhary, coordinator for an emancipated group, said that half a century ago his grandfather, while drunk, had beaten a cow, a sacred animal in Hindu culture. A member of the Brahman priestly caste confronted his grandfather who, fearing that he wouldn't be reincarnated, agreed to give over half his land.

The Brahman immediately registered his windfall, then offered the man's family food, alcohol and loans, insisting each time on repayment in land.

"Soon we became sharecroppers on the land we'd owned," Chaudhary said. "We lost everything."

In 2000, a related kamaiya system involving adults was outlawed, as were debts passed down for generations, but child servitude wasn't made illegal until 2006. After that, the government promised free housing, retraining and education to dispossessed Tharu, although corruption and government inefficiency have undercut implementation, civic groups said.

With the kamlari system now under siege, former victims are daring to dream.

"Before I was taken away, my brother once asked me what I wanted to be and I told him, a lawyer," said Anita Chaudhary. "Now that I'm back in school, I'd still like to be a lawyer. So many girls are without rights or hope. I want to help protect them."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-nepal-indentured-20101229,0,2662975.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Governor gets an earful on Billy the Kid

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, considering whether to make good on a pardon the outlaw was purportedly promised, incites a debate with his query to residents.

by Rick Rojas, Los Angeles Times

December 29, 2010

With his tenure as New Mexico governor running out this week, Bill Richardson says he is still mulling a pardon for Billy the Kid, with public sentiment leaning in favor of the pardon, according to an aide.

Billy the Kid, who also went by the name William H. Bonney, was convicted of murdering Lincoln County Sheriff William Brady in 1878. Lew Wallace, the governor of territorial New Mexico in the late 1870s, purportedly offered the Kid a pardon if he testified against other members of Billy Campbell's posse in a separate murder case. The Kid testified, but no pardon was granted.

In April 1881, shortly before the Kid was to be hanged, he escaped from jail and killed two deputies. Sheriff Pat Garrett tracked him down and killed him on July 14, 1881.

Richardson set up a website this month and asked New Mexicans if they believed the Kid should be pardoned for the Brady murder. In the process, he incited a debate in a place where frontier history still resonates with many.

Slightly more than half of the roughly 800 respondents said the pact should be honored and the pardon granted, said Eric Witt, deputy chief of staff for Richardson. Others, including descendants of Wallace and Garrett, argued that pardoning a criminal like the Kid would sully the reputations of the territorial governor and the lawmen who chased the Kid down.

"The Kid seems to be winning when it comes to public opinion," Witt said. "It's been a very intriguing historic review at an academic level, and it's just trying to set the record straight."

(A third camp responded by asking: Why are you wasting your time with this, anyway? That group includes Richardson's incoming successor, Republican Susana Martinez.)

Richardson, a Democrat and an Old West history buff, began considering the pardon after Albuquerque attorney Randi McGinn filed a petition this month.

McGinn sought absolution for the Brady murder, but not to wipe the slate clean of the Kid's every crime. "It's only to enforce one promise the governor made," she said.

She said historians were finding that Wallace did indeed make a genuine offer, but that he balked under political pressure.

William N. Wallace, the great-grandson of Lew Wallace and a retired New York Times reporter, said the pardon would reduce the governor from an American hero to a "dishonorable liar."

"This is not a petition," Wallace wrote in a letter to Richardson. "It is a deceit."

A pardon for Billy the Kid, he added, would "desecrate, defile, debase and dishonor an American hero in favor of a convicted murderer."

Witt said the governor had yet to make up his mind. Richardson has a narrow window: His term ends Friday when the clock strikes midnight.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-billy-pardon-20101229,0,3723122,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

California sentences more prisoners to die while executing none

With its death chamber idled by legal challenges, California sends 28 prisoners to death row in 2010.

by Carol J. Williams, Los Angeles Times

December 29, 2010

California continued to buck a nationwide trend away from costly and litigious death sentences in 2010, adding 28 new prisoners to the country's most populous death row, according to correction officials and a national database on capital punishment.

Los Angeles County alone condemned eight defendants to death this year, the same number as Texas, and Riverside County sent six men to await execution, officials said.

The state's death chamber was idle for a fifth year, though, because of protracted legal challenges of lethal injection practices and a nationwide shortage of the key drug used in the three-injection procedure.

Whether executions will resume in 2011 could be decided early in the new year, when a federal judge is expected to decide if the state's newly revised lethal injection procedures conform with a constitutional ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

But with 717 condemned inmates on California's death row, the legal tug-of-war over capital punishment is expected to intensify, experts say, especially with incoming Gov. Jerry Brown and Atty. Gen.-elect Kamala Harris known to personally oppose executions on moral grounds. Both politicians, however, have said they will uphold death sentences in their new jobs.

Nationwide, the number of executions dropped by about 12% this year, from 52 in 2009 to 46, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization opposed to capital punishment that tracks death sentences. Texas maintained its perennial role as the state with the most active death chamber, with 17 executions, down from 24 last year, according to the center's database. Of the 35 states that practice capital punishment, 12 carried out the ultimate penalty at least once this year.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation scheduled its first execution in nearly five years for Sept. 30 but had to call it off when federal judges intervened to point out that court review of the new execution regimen hadn't been completed. The San Jose judge overseeing the review, U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel, also ruled that the imminent expiration of the state's last supply of sodium thiopental wasn't a justifiable reason to go ahead with the execution of rapist and murderer Albert Greenwood Brown.

Brown is one of seven death row inmates who have exhausted all appeals and could be subject to execution if Fogel clears the new methods after reviewing arguments filed in at least three pending lawsuits.

The soaring costs of keeping prisoners on death row for decades has provided ammunition for death penalty opponents who have failed to erode majority support for capital punishment with moral arguments. Research provided to the bipartisan California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice showed it costs at least three times as much for detention and legal representation for capital inmates as for other state prisoners; the latter average $44,000 per person annually.

Nationwide, juries and judges handed down at least 114 new death sentences this year, close to last year's 111 and fewer than half of the 300-plus annual totals in the late 1990s.

Still, in California, capital punishment enjoys majority support in public opinion polls, though its backing is down from 78% two decades ago to about 66% now. Nationally, an October Gallup poll recorded 64% of those surveyed in favor of the death penalty.

"What could be operating here is that the death penalty is not seen as real in California, as there hasn't been an execution in almost five years," said Richard Dieter, executive director of the Death Penalty Information Center. "In jurors' minds, they can vote for a death sentence without the worry that 10 years later some new evidence [of innocence] might emerge. In California, that inmate is not going to be executed in that time and probably is never going to be executed."

Death sentences have dropped markedly in other areas of the country, especially in smaller cities and counties that can't afford the legal costs of defending the verdicts through years of appeal, Dieter said.

Riverside County Dist. Atty. Rod Pacheco, a supporter of capital punishment, said cost shouldn't be a consideration, that district attorneys are "in the job of making sure justice gets done." His prosecutors pursue a death penalty when the circumstances of the crime warrant it, he said, calling the penalty not only morally justified but also necessary as a deterrent and a means of dealing with criminals "so unbelievably dangerous that they cannot even live in our society in a correctional facility."

The office of Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who lost a close race for state attorney general to Harris, "is complying with established law when it fulfills its duty to seek the penalty in appropriate cases," said spokeswoman Sandi Gibbons. She said the office reviewed nearly 1,500 cases in the last decade in which the defendants were eligible for the death penalty because of aggravated circumstances and sought it in 113 instances, or fewer than 10% of cases where it could have been applied.

California has executed 13 inmates since capital punishment was restored in 1976, two in San Quentin State Prison's gas chamber and 11 by lethal injection. The last execution was in January 2006.

Fogel halted the February 2006 execution of murderer Michael A. Morales by requiring the assistance of physicians to ensure that the sodium thiopental had fully anesthetized the prisoner before the second injection induced paralysis and the third caused cardiac arrest. But doctors are prohibited from participating in executions by ethical guidance of the American Medical Assn., and Morales' execution was called off when Fogel's conditions couldn't be met.

The judge conducted hearings later that year and was told of concerns that as many as six of the California prisoners executed by lethal injection may not have been fully unconscious after the first shot.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-executions-20101229,0,2814776,print.story

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the New York Times

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

No-No Boy

Courage takes many forms. Frank Emi, who died in California on Dec. 1, age 94, had the steadfast kind, well suited for lonely struggles and ostracism.

He was a young Japanese-American man sent to an internment camp in Wyoming after Pearl Harbor. He could have gotten out by signing a loyalty oath and enlisting in the Army, proving his patriotism the way so many other Japanese-Americans did — honorably, irrefutably, with their blood, limbs and lives.

Mr. Emi marched in exactly the opposite direction. After receiving draft notices in the camp, he and six other young men created the Fair Play Committee. In March 1944, they signed a declaration challenging the internment policy and their conscription as shameful affronts to the Constitution and American ideals.

“We, the members of the FPC, are not afraid to go to war,” they wrote. “We are not afraid to risk our lives for our country. We would gladly sacrifice our lives to protect and uphold the principles and ideals of our country as set forth in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, for on its inviolability depends the freedom, liberty, justice, and protection of all people, including Japanese-Americans and all other minority groups.

“But have we been given such freedom, such liberty, such justice, such protection? NO!!”

Mr. Emi and the six other original signers all refused to serve. More than 300 people in 10 camps joined them. All were prosecuted. Other Japanese-Americans mocked them as the “no-no boys.” The Japanese American Citizens League denounced them as seditious. But Mr. Emi, who spent 18 months in a federal penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kan., was right to speak out.

After the war, Mr. Emi worked as a postal clerk and for the State of California. In the 1980s, he joined the fight for redress for Japanese-Americans who were deprived of their property and freedom.

Congress apologized in 1988. It took several more years for the Japanese American Citizens League to withdraw its slander against the resisters. It apologized in 2000.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/opinion/29wed4.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&pagewanted=print

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From Google News

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Police Arrest 5 in Danish Terror Plot

Police in Sweden and Denmark arrested five men suspected of plotting an “imminent” terror attack against a Danish newspaper that published cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in 2005, security officials in those countries said.

“An imminent terror attack has been foiled,” Jakob Scharf, the head of the Danish Security and Intelligence Service, known as PET, told The Associated Press.

Four of the suspects were arrested in Denmark and a fifth in Sweden. Three of the men are Swedish citizens, according to a statement released by Swedish security police.

The statement referred to a “serious terror crime” that had been thwarted through the cooperation of Danish and Swedish police but gave few details.

The arrests were not connected with a botched Dec. 11 suicide bombing near a crowded commercial area of downtown Stockholm, Swedish police said. The bomber in that case was a 28-year-old Swedish citizen of Iraqi origin.

In September 2005, the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten published satirical caricatures of the Prophet Muhammad. The images, seen as blasphemous by many Muslims and a deliberate provocation by a conservative newspaper, provoked outrage and some violent rioting in Muslim countries.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/30/world/europe/30denmark.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

McAfee: Smartphones, Apple top '11 crime targets

"We've seen significant advancements in device and social-network adoption, placing a bulls-eye on the platforms and services users are embracing the most," Vincent Weafer, senior vice president of McAfee Labs, said in a release announcing the report. "These platforms and services have become very popular in a short amount of time, and we're already seeing a significant increase in vulnerabilities, attacks and data loss."

In other words, the security infrastructure surrounding popular new services and devices--and more importantly public awareness of potential threats that people may face when using them--may not be up to par with better-established technologies. Take URL shorteners, for example. Because it's so easy to mask longer URLs with them and because Twitter users have grown accustomed to clicking them without much thought, McAfee expects that they will continue to be targets for spam, scams, and viruses.

Social networks will remain hotbeds of malicious attacks, McAfee predicted, but geolocation services like Foursquare and Facebook Places will see new prominence. "In just a few clicks, cybercriminals can see in real time who is tweeting, where they are located, what they are saying, what their interests are, and what operating systems and applications they are using," McAfee noted. "This wealth of personal information on individuals enables cybercriminals to craft a targeted attack."

As for hardware, mobile devices (particularly those used on corporate networks), Internet TV platforms like Google TV, and devices running Apple operating systems are anticipated to be prime targets.

McAfee also said that the saga of WikiLeaks, the controversial classified-document repository that dominated headlines around the world late in 2010, is likely to spawn copycats in 2011: the security firm expects "politically motivated attacks" to be on the rise.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1009_3-20026667-83.html?part=rss&subj=TheSocial

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Line-of-duty deaths among police officers go up

(CNN) -- The shooting death of a Texas police officer late Tuesday adds to a grim toll: A law enforcement officer was killed every 53 hours in the United States this year, according to a new report.

Line-of-duty deaths jumped by 37% in 2010, according to the report by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund.

In the past two days, CNN has reported the deaths of two police officers: one in Texas and another one in Atlanta.

An officer was killed Monday during a traffic stop in Atlanta. Late Tuesday night, an Arlington police officer was among three people killed in a shooting at an apartment complex.

These incidents are part of an overall trend of increased violence against police officers and law enforcement professionals this year. According to preliminary data compiled by the memorial fund, a total of 160 federal, state and local law enforcement officers died in the line of duty during the past 12 months, an alarming increase that follows two years of declining deaths among the nation's policing professionals.

While the sharpest increase has been in gun-related deaths, traffic-related incidents remained the number one cause of death among the nation's law enforcement officers for the 13th consecutive year. Seventy-three officers have been killed in traffic-related incidents this year, compared with 51 in 2009.

"Our law enforcement officers are being asked to do more today with less," said memorial fund Chairman Craig W. Floyd. "And it is putting their lives at risk."

During the past year, 18 officers were killed in Texas, the highest in any state. It was followed by California with 11, Illinois with 10, Florida with nine and Georgia with seven.

Since the first known line-of-duty death in 1792, nearly 19,000 U.S. law enforcement officers have made the ultimate sacrifice.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/29/us.law.enforcement.deaths/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

'Suitcase killer' defense: 'She hit me first'

by DAREH GREGORIAN and JAMIE SCHRAM

December 29, 2010

A suspected East Harlem killer who stuffed his victim in a suitcase confessed to bashing her over the head with a pan and strangling her with a cord -- but only after she first attacked him, prosecutors said yesterday.

Hassan Malik, 55, told cops he paid victim Betty Williams, 28, for sex and then fought with her after he caught her trying to steal his money, according to police sources.

Malik -- who has a long rap sheet for assault, harassment, robbery and drugs -- copped to the strangulation slaying of Williams in a written and videotaped confession, according to a criminal complaint.

He was arrested Monday at a Sleepy Hollow apartment, arraigned on murder charges yesterday, and held without bail.

Malik initially told detectives he had returned home to his Pleasant Avenue pad to find Williams dead. He claimed Williams had been spending time in the apartment with another man.

But Malik later admitted he had lied and gave cops the "she hit me first" story, according to the complaint.

The suspect said Williams "struck him with a frying pan twice on his shoulder," so he grabbed the pan from her and used it to crack her twice on the head, the court papers claim.

After being hit, Malik claimed Williams managed to grab an electrical cord and wrap it around his neck, but he wrested it away and choked her, the documents said.

Shortly after she passed out, Malik told cops, he discovered she was dead.

According to the complaint, the suspect admitted to stuffing her body into a suitcase and then abandoning it on East 114th Street near First Avenue.

Williams -- who had 14 arrests and, police said, a history of prostitution -- was found clothed in the luggage last Wednesday by a passer-by.

The break in the case came after a tipster saw a video released by police that allegedly showed Malik wheeling the suitcase to the spot where it was discovered.

When Malik was taken from the 23rd Precinct station house early yesterday, he told reporters he was "sorry" for what he did.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/manhattan/she_hit_me_first_iXXO7vXaKArdLfDoWotA8K

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Body of burned child found in Texas

Police got a call from someone who initially believed the remains to be burned debris, said homicide Lt. Leslie Martinez. The body is about 3 feet tall, she said.

The body apparently had been burned elsewhere and authorities were uncertain of the child's sex.

Houston police also are searching for a missing 12-year-old boy. The Amber Alert lists him as being between 4 feet, 8 inches tall and 5 feet tall.

Police said they could not say whether the cases were connected until the body has been identified. CNN affiliate KPRC reported tests will be expedited, but results and a cause of death could take a few weeks.

Jonathan Foster was last seen December 24. Police Sgt. C.T. Mosqueda said authorities are treating that case as a kidnapping.

Jonathan has short red hair above his ears and an overbite. He was last seen wearing blue jeans, a tan shirt with a picture of a guitar, white sneakers with red stripe and a gray zipped jacket with a hood. The alert said he may be in the company of an adult female with a raspy voice.

The boy's mother reported him missing about seven hours after he was last seen, police spokesman Kese Smith said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/28/texas.burned.body/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the Department of Homeland Security

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Resolve to be Ready 2011

On this page you will find a toolkit to help your organization develop internal and external messages to encourage your members, employees, constituents, customers and community to make a New Year's resolution to prepare for emergencies. You will also find Web banners for your organization's Web site, a sample E-mail and a Newsletter you can share with your key constituents.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact Ready at Ready@dhs.gov

Now's the Time. Resolve to be Ready in 2011:

From ICE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Former Indiana middle school teacher sentenced to 30 years for child pornography

HAMMOND, Ind. - A former band teacher at a local middle school was sentenced on Tuesday to 30 years in federal prison for enticing a minor and manufacturing child pornography. The sentence resulted from an investigation conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Hammond Police Department.

James Allen Ciammetti, 43, of Oak Lawn, Ill., was sentenced Dec. 28 by U.S. District Judge James Moody, Northern District of Indiana, to 30 years imprisonment and 20 years of supervised release. Ciammetti pleaded guilty to coercing and enticing a minor and manufacturing child pornography. As part of the plea agreement, Ciammetti also relinquished the balance of his teacher's retirement account, to be paid as restitution in this case. Ciammetti was a band teacher at George Rogers Clark Middle School in Hammond.

"Today's sentencing should put all types of child predators on notice that serious consequences await those who sexually exploit innocent children," said Gary Hartwig, special agent in charge of ICE HSI in Chicago. "This case was particularly troubling because of Mr. Ciammetti's position of public trust as an educator. HSI will continue to work closely with its law enforcement partners to protect our children and ensure that sexual predators feel the full weight of the law."

This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys for the Northern District of Indiana Philip Benson and Jill Trumbull Harris.

This investigation was part of Operation Predator, a nationwide ICE initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers. ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE. This hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators.

Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at 1-800-843-5678 or http://www.cybertipline.com .

http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/1012/101228hammond.htm

.