An Overview

Policing in cyberspace presents unique challenges for American law enforcement. Very few cases start and end within the same jurisdiction, and therefore nearly all ICAC investigations require extensive multi-agency collaboration. The special agents assigned to Wisconsin's ICAC Task Force have multi-jurisdictional authority as they investigate and prosecute those individuals who use the Internet to exploit children.

The primary responsibilities of Wisconsin's ICAC Task Force include:

• Conducting investigations and prosecuting offenders.
• Providing investigative and prosecutorial assistance to police agencies and prosecutors (e.g., forensic analysis of computers seized as evidence).
• Providing training for law enforcement officers and prosecutors.
• Providing training for parents, teachers and other community members and distributing informational materials to ensure that children, parents, and other individuals and organizations are well-acquainted with the issues in this area, including potential problems and the availability of assistance.
• Fostering continual statewide and regional coordination, collaboration, information sharing, networking and service integration.

The Wisconsin ICAC Task Force includes a partnership with a growing list of local law enforcement agencies and Boys and Girls Clubs throughout the state. There are now over 170 ICAC affiliates throughout the state, nearly triple the number of partnerships since just 2008.

For further information about the national ICAC Task Force Program see:

OJJDP: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

OJJDP Bulletin: Protecting Children in Cyberspace

Major Cases

• Thirty five year old Amani Booker from Milwaukee, WI was sentenced in January 2011 to 14 years in federal prison for recruiting a 14-year-old girl as a prostitute. Booker admitted that he and Holly Arnold found the girl walking near the corner of 17th Street and North Avenue in Milwaukee in May 2010. Booker and Arnold told the girl she "could be making big money".
  
  
  
  Booker and Arnold then drove the girl to the Red Roof Inn on 13th Street in Oak Creek. There, prosecutors allege the girl was given marijuana to become high before Booker took nude photos of the girl and posted them online to advertise sex at the motel. Several men showed up as customers and paid hundreds of dollars in cash.
  
  Oak Creek Police stopped a vehicle with the 14 year old girl, Booker, and Arnold inside. Police detained the 14 year old girl and she told them what happened.
  
  The girl told police "she was afraid to leave the hotel because she had no money, did not know where she was, and had no way of going somewhere else."
  
  This was a joint investigation between the Wisconsin Department of Justice, Division of Criminal Investigation’s Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Unit and the Oak Creek Police Department. The case was prosecuted by the United States District Court, Eastern District of Wisconsin.
  
  
• Eric Schuster, 45, of Ellsworth, Wisconsin, was sentenced on October 13, 2011 by U.S. District Judge Barbara B. Crabb to 262 months (21 years, 10 months) in prison for manufacturing child pornography.
  
  Judge Crabb stated that she was imposing the high sentence because Schuster created child pornography on three separate occasions and because he distributed child pornography.
  
  United States Attorney John Vaudreuil stated that the charges followed an international investigation initially conducted by the Amsterdam Police Department and the Dutch National Police Department. The case led to Wisconsin where the investigation was continued by the Wisconsin Department of Justice-Division of Criminal Investigation, the Pierce County Sheriff’s Department, and the Department of Homeland Security. The prosecution of the case has been handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy M. O’Shea.
  
  
• On May 4, 2010, Wisconsin Department of Justice Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) agents, with the Bayfield, Douglas and Sawyer County Sheriff's Offices, served a search warrant at the residence of Kyle Johnson in Iron River, WI resulting from a proactive, undercover investigation involving child pornography.
  
  
  
  Johnson admitted to downloading child pornography and was subsequently charged with five counts of possession of child pornography in Bayfield County Circuit Court.
  
  In November 2010, Johnson was convicted of three charges of possession of child pornography, and on February 18, 2011, Johnson was sentenced to six (6) years in state prison.