Monsters Hiding In Plain Sight

By Rod Dreher
American Conservative
May 21, 2014

http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/monsters-hiding-in-plain-sight/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=monsters-hiding-in-plain-sight

In what law enforcement officials have described as the largest-ever enforcement operation in New York going after people who “possess, produce or distribute sexually explicit images of children,” 70 people have been arrested across the state and charged with crimes involving the exploitation of children.

The people arrested include two police officers, two registered nurses, a paramedic, an au pair, and an individual who served as both a den master with the Boy Scouts of America and a Little League baseball coach.

More:

The operation, according to the statement, had its origins in two earlier arrests.

On Jan. 23, Brian Fanelli, chief of the Mount Pleasant Police Department in Valhalla, N.Y., was arrested and charged with the possession of child pornography.

The charges stunned the small northern Westchester County community where Mr. Fanelli was well liked and had taught children in religious classes at St. Elizabeth Ann Seton Church in Shrub Oak, N.Y., how to be alert to sexual abuse.

On March 5, Samuel Waldman, a rabbi and an instructor of Judaic studies, was arrested at his residence in Brooklyn. He was also charged with possession of child pornography.

Law enforcement officials said those two cases provided critical information that led to the broader operation.

A chief of police (who was also a Sunday school teacher and child sex-abuse educator) and a rabbi — and their arrests led to the others. Stunning. It makes you feel that you can never, ever let your guard down. Ever.