Suspect admits decade of child porn downloads

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A convicted sex offender nabbed by federal agents in a Kansas City, Mo., community college library on suspicion of downloading child pornography told investigators he had been exchanging images of child porn for more than a decade, according to court documents.

Acting on a tip from an undercover investigator in Delaware, nearly a dozen federal special agents swarmed Metropolitan Community College's Penn Valley library on Valentine's Day and found Sean Lawrence, 39, in a back corner with his laptop computer.

A review of the computer's hard drive determined a video of a young boy participating in a sex act was downloaded just a few minutes before Homeland Security agents arrived.

Lawrence, of Kansas City, told investigators he had been trading hundreds of child porn images every day since 1999, not counting time he spent in prison for molesting an underage boy, according to a federal affidavit.

"Lawrence could not estimate the amount of child pornography images and videos he sent per email, but he recalled that he once had to send multiple emails due to the size of the files containing child pornography," a special agent wrote in the affidavit. He added that Lawrence gave investigators permission to log onto his private, peer-to-peer file sharing network and found more than 850 members.

Frank Kardasz, retired commander of the Arizona Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, said his task force worked dozens of cases involving people viewing or trafficking child porn while using public and college library computers.

The problem is tough to police because of the imperfect nature of Internet filtering devices and pushback from free-speech advocates who believe adults should have the right to view adult pornography in libraries, he said, adding that any place offering wireless Internet connections "is an opportunity for child pornography offenders to traffic contraband images."

"My experience is that some, not all, libraries underreport the offenses because they do not wish to bring attention nor police involvement to their facility," said Kardasz, founder and director of the Phoenix-based Cyberspace Child Protection Campaign. "Also, because many offenders are nefarious enough to avoid apprehension, there are probably more offenses occurring than we are aware of."

Kathy Walter-Mack, chief of staff for MCC Chancellor Mark James, declined to discuss Lawrence's case because he is a student at the college and is the focus of an ongoing investigation. She said the college's policies prohibit the unlawful use of its computer networks.

"If we're made aware of legal activity, we cooperate with law enforcement," she said. "We are an educational institution that operates under the guidelines of the First Amendment and laws and other regulatory requirements."

But the First Amendment, Kardasz said, was crafted long before the invention of computers.

"While I support free speech, I cannot imagine that the framers of the Constitution foresaw pornography in the library as acceptable when children are also present," he said.

Lawrence remained in federal custody in Kansas City Friday on a charge of transporting child pornography. He is awaiting transfer to Delaware sometime in the next few weeks on that charge, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Wilmington, Del., said. He did not yet have an attorney.

Lawrence's criminal record goes back to 1994, when he was convicted of first-degree sexual assault and placed on probation for five years. In 2004, he was convicted of second-degree sodomy for molesting a 14-year-old boy in St. Louis and sentenced to five years in prison.

He came to the attention of federal agents Feb. 8, when an undercover federal agent in Delaware saw someone named "Justforfun221" was sharing files in password-protected files. The agent said he chatted with Justforfun221, who provided the password "Boys" to access his protected folders.

The HSI agent downloaded 11 video files of child pornography and traced the Internet protocol address to Metropolitan Community College, which provided authorities with Lawrence's subscriber information.

The agent verified that Lawrence's home address matched that in MCC subscriber records, and that he was a registered sex offender.

He saw Lawrence online Feb. 14 and contacted HSI in Kansas City. Forty minutes later, 11 special agents swarmed the Penn Valley library and took him into custody.