Hamilton
Township, Mercer County – Attorney General
Jeffrey S. Chiesa today announced the arrests
associated with a large scale child porn investigation
dubbed Operation Watchdog. The three-month,
multi-agency effort resulted in 26 men and
one woman being charged with Distribution
and Possession of Child Pornography.
“Through aggressive, technology-driven
investigations such as Operation Watchdog,
we must banish the misguided notion that
online viewing and sharing of child pornography
is a victimless crime,” said Attorney
General Chiesa. “The vulnerable children
who are tortured and degraded to create
these vile materials are re-victimized every
time another person views the images. Moreover,
these offenders generate the demand that
motivates suppliers to produce these odious
images.”
The first arrest was Cesar Salgado-Maya,
23, of Audubon, who was arrested on March
1, before the other targets of the operation
when he was found to be living in a residence
connected to a child daycare center. Another
man, Bernard Cahill, 53, of Folsom, allegedly
took photos while sexually assaulting a
juvenile. Those pictures were discovered
during the search warrant. Cahill was additionally
charged with Sexual Assault and Manufacturing
Child Pornography.
“Those who thought they could hide
their child porn crimes in the secrecy of
their homes have been exposed by the relentless
work of law enforcement working together.
We will continue to stand together—as
the name Operation Watchdog implies—as
guardians to protect children from those
who would make them sexual victims,”
said Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent
of the New Jersey State Police.
Detectives were able to link all arrested
subjects by their use of the Internet to
download or distribute images of child pornography.
There is a large library of images and videos
known to law enforcement. These pictures
are able to be traced in a number of ways,
including their digital fingerprint, as
they are passed through cyberspace. Detectives
then follow the file transfers to their
origin and destination locations. Peer to
Peer, or P2P, file sharing networks play
a significant role in the distribution of
child porn. Detectives, often with intricate
undercover identities in the cyber-world,
also monitor searches of these sites to
develop suspects.
The Operation Watchdog investigation was
coordinated by the Digital Technology Investigations
Unit of New Jersey State Police, with seamless
integration of more than 100 troopers, agents,
detectives and officers from 21 law enforcement
agencies. Between Monday, April 9th and
Friday, April 13, they executed search warrants
in 26 different towns across the state.
All of the warrant entries were made by
the NJSP T.E.A.M.S. Unit, which is the tactical
operations group similar to SWAT.
One subject, William Brooks, 66, of Pennsauken,
had his computer actively running a file
sharing program with multiple child porn
images when the warrant on his home was
served. With a previous conviction in another
state on his record, Brooks was lodged in
Camden County Jail in default of $300,000
cash bail. Three subjects, whose names are
not being released at this time, are still
being sought.
The Division of Criminal Justice, under
Director Stephen J. Taylor, prepared the
warrants and provided assistance from the
inception of Operation Watchdog in January
of 2012. Their office will prosecute the
charges.
“Let the word go out that those who
share child pornography over the Internet
are also sharing the evidence of their crimes
with computer experts from law enforcement,
who are patrolling the Internet to stop
this tragic victimization of children,”
said Director Taylor. “The Division
of Criminal Justice will continue to work
hand-in-hand with the State Police and our
other law enforcement partners to arrest
such offenders.”
All of the New Jersey partner agencies
in Operation Watchdog are members of the
New Jersey Internet Crimes Against Children
Task Force (ICAC). Additionally, agents
from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) and the FBI assisted with the investigation
and execution of warrants.
The ICAC Task Force in New Jersey works
with other out-of-state partners to share
information on potential distributors and
users of child pornography. One major partner
is the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children in Washington, D.C. They maintain
a national, toll-free tip line for the public
to report crimes against children: 1-800-THE-LOST,
or 1-800-843-5678. That
tip line was responsible for bringing more
than 900 leads to the New Jersey ICAC on
sexual crimes against children.
An operation like this requires a huge
amount of logistical preparation. The State
Police Polygraph Unit was used to interview
appropriate subjects following the execution
of search warrants. The Evidence Management
Unit helped catalog the large amount of
mostly computer related evidence. All of
the investigations are still considered
ongoing since computer media seized as evidence
have been turned over to the FBI’s
Regional Computer Forensic Lab for thorough
examination. This lab is staffed with partners
from several different agencies including
the NJSP, and works on case evidence from
New Jersey and surrounding states.
The charges are merely accusations and
the defendants are presumed innocent until
proven guilty. Because the charges are indictable
offenses, they will be presented to a state
grand jury for potential indictment.
For a list of those arrested during Operation
Watchdog and mug shots, go to our release
on our website at www.njsp.org
Below is a list of those arrested during
Operation Watchdog: