Testimony from three girls featured in CNN's Freedom Project helps
convict a U.S. man found with dozens of explicit videos and images of
children.
FULL STORY
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100,000 SEX WORKERS ARE KIDS
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WATCH 'CNN'S THE FIGHTERS'
(CNN) -- A convicted child pornographer in
Pennsylvania was sentenced Tuesday to 12 years in federal prison, thanks
in part to three girls featured in CNN's Freedom Project who provided
information to U.S. authorities.
Pacquiao: I want to be a public servant
(CNN) -- Months after a secret e-mail search
controversy at Harvard College, Evelynn M. Hammonds announced on Tuesday
that she will step down as dean on July 1, according to a statement
posted online.
2012: Harvard students cheating?
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WATCH 'CNN'S THE FIGHTERS' Girls from CNN Freedom Project help bust U.S. child pornographer
May 29, 2013 -- Updated 0715 GMT (1515 HKT)
Government: 100,000 sex workers are kids
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- A Pennsylvania man gets 12 years in federal prison for child pornography
- He accessed live sex shows of girls in the Philippines on the Internet, investigators say
- Information from girls in a CNN Freedom Project documentary led to his arrest
Jeffrey Herschell, 54, of
Washington, Pennsylvania, visited an Internet site that showed live sex
shows that forced young girls in the Philippines to act out customers'
fantasies, U.S. investigators said.
"Whatever the American
client wants us to do, we must do it," "Gen" told CNN in May 2011 for
the documentary "The Fighters." "Gen" and her friends were schoolmates
and just 8 years old when the abuse occurred.
An investigator from
Homeland Security Investigations, part of U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement, told CNN the information the three girls provided him was
integral to the case against Herschell.
Pacquiao: I want to be a public servant
Their information
launched an investigation that uncovered a ring operating live-streaming
shows of children engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Customers from
around the globe, including an estimated 10 to 15 from the United
States, paid to view the shows and direct them, in some cases.
When HSI agents executed a
search warrant on Herschell's home in 2011, they found computers, cell
phones and hard drives containing dozens of explicit videos and images
of children.
The inquiry involved
several U.S. agencies, the Philippines national police and the
non-profit group Visayan Forum Foundation, which fights modern-day
slavery.
May 29, 2013 -- Updated 1532 GMT (2332 HKT)
Months after a secret e-mail search controversy at Harvard College,
Evelynn M. Hammonds announced that she will step down as dean. FULL STORY
Harvard College dean steps down after e-mail scandal
May 29, 2013 -- Updated 1511 GMT (2311 HKT)
Evelynn M. Hammonds says she will step down as dean of Harvard College.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Evelynn M. Hammonds will step down as Harvard College dean on July 1
- She was the first African-American dean and first woman dean there
- Hammonds was criticized after she conducted a secret search of faculty e-mails
- She was trying to find out who leaked information in a student cheating scandal
Hammonds came under fire in March
for conducting a search of the e-mail accounts of resident deans in an
effort to find who leaked information regarding a cheating scandal
involving more than 100 students.
The Harvard Crimson, the
daily newspaper of Harvard College, published an article in April
titled, "To Rebuild Trust, Hammonds Must Resign." The article concluded
by stating "With Hammonds's resignation, Harvard can begin to bridge the
rift of trust between the administration and the community it serves."
Hammonds said in a statement that the e-mail controversy was "not a motivating factor" in her decision to step down as dean.
"I was never asked to step down," she said. "I have been in discussions to return to academia and my research for some time."
2012: Harvard students cheating?
Hammonds will take a
sabbatical after 11 years of continuous service before returning to her
teaching program and her scholarship, the statement says.
"Being dean of Harvard
College has been an immensely rewarding experience for me," said Hammons
in the statement, "But I miss engaging deeply with my scholarship and
teaching."
"I'm grateful to
[Hammonds] for all she has done to help our undergraduates thrive," said
President Drew Faust, "and we will be fortunate to continue benefiting
from her talents and wisdom."
In 2008, Hammonds became the first African-American and the first woman to be named dean of Harvard College.
After the scandal in March, the school apologized for the way it handled the secret search.
"While the specific
document made public may be deemed by some as not particularly
consequential, the disclosure of the document and nearly word-for-word
disclosure of a confidential board conversation led to concerns that
other information -- especially student information we have a duty to
protect as private -- was at risk," said a statement from Hammonds and
Michael D. Smith, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
"Consequently, with the
approval of the dean of FAS (Faculty of Arts and Sciences) and the
University General Counsel, and the support of the dean of Harvard
College, a very narrow, careful, and precise subject-line search was
conducted by the University's IT department," they added.
Smith and Hammonds
stressed that the search was limited to administrative accounts and that
it did not involve a review of e-mail content.
"To be clear: No one's e-mails were opened and the contents of no one's e-mails were searched by human or machine," they said.
The search successfully identified a resident dean who had forwarded a confidential e-mail.
However, after review,
school officials determined the dean in question had committed "an
inadvertent error and not an intentional breach" by sending the message
to two students.
"Operating without any
clear precedent for the conflicting privacy concerns and knowing that no
human had looked at any e-mails during or after the investigation, we
made a decision that protected the privacy of the resident dean who had
made an inadvertent error and allowed the student cases being handled by
this resident dean to move forward expeditiously," Smith and Hammonds
said.
"We understand that
others may see the situation differently, and we apologize if any
resident deans feel our communication at the conclusion of the
investigation was insufficient," they added.
News of the secret search drew immediate criticism from some members of Harvard's faculty.
Harry Lewis, a professor
and former dean of Harvard College, said on his blog that he will
likely move most of his personal e-mails to another account, keeping his
Harvard address just for business. He described the way the school
handled the case as dishonorable.
"Why not tell people you
are reading their e-mail? Would it not be the honorable thing to do?
What is to be gained by not doing that? Other than avoiding, perhaps,
the embarrassment of acknowledging that you are doing something to which
the targets would reasonably object if they knew it," he wrote.
A month prior, the
school had announced that more than half the students implicated in the
cheating scandal had been required to withdraw for a time.
More than 100 students were investigated for plagiarism or for having "inappropriately collaborated" on a course's take-home, open-book spring final exam.
The class was Government 1310: Introduction to Congress, according to The Harvard Crimson.
Many of those who were
not forced to withdraw faced disciplinary probation at the Ivy League
institution in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the remaining were cleared.
CNN's Julia Talanova contributed to this report
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