6 charged with Katrina child-sex offences

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – Louisiana authorities said on Monday they had charged five men and a woman with offences related to using the Internet to solicit minors who they believed to be Hurricane Katrina evacuees.

State Attorney General Charles Foti said the six were arrested after a sting operation in which they allegedly chatted online with investigators posing as 13- to 15-year-old girls living in emergency shelters without their parents. The charges ranged from contributing to the delinquency of juveniles to computer-aided sexual solicitation of a minor, Foti told journalists in state capital Baton Rouge.”As disgusting as it may seem, these people…start talking in most instances about sexual-orientated acts,” he said.”This is a criminal act and we intend to prosecute to the full extent of the law…Even at the worst of times, criminals do not rest.””I think it’s absolutely reprehensible that these people would try to take advantage of the most down-and-out and most vulnerable members of our population at this time,” Foti added in a statement.Online solicitation, Foti said, carried a jail term of up to 10 years for a first offence in Louisiana.Around one million people were displaced when Hurricane Katrina slammed into the US Gulf Coast on August 29.About 100 000 remain in emergency shelters around the country, while many of the rest of New Orleans’ half million population are still living in hotels, with family and friends.- Nampa-AFPThe charges ranged from contributing to the delinquency of juveniles to computer-aided sexual solicitation of a minor, Foti told journalists in state capital Baton Rouge.”As disgusting as it may seem, these people…start talking in most instances about sexual-orientated acts,” he said.”This is a criminal act and we intend to prosecute to the full extent of the law…Even at the worst of times, criminals do not rest.””I think it’s absolutely reprehensible that these people would try to take advantage of the most down-and-out and most vulnerable members of our population at this time,” Foti added in a statement.Online solicitation, Foti said, carried a jail term of up to 10 years for a first offence in Louisiana.Around one million people were displaced when Hurricane Katrina slammed into the US Gulf Coast on August 29.About 100 000 remain in emergency shelters around the country, while many of the rest of New Orleans’ half million population are still living in hotels, with family and friends.- Nampa-AFP