Posted on 04/08/2005 8:14:11 AM PDT by Calpernia
No, I think this means there is no federal statute governing child molestation. It also means once the Feds are done with him the States can go after him. At least, this is my assumption.
A Nutley man who has admitted to sexually assaulting nine children, including at least two he videotaped during sex acts in the basement of a church, pleaded guilty yesterday to federal pedophilia charges.
Kevin Hildreth, 35, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in Newark to crossing state lines to sexually assault a child and to possession of child pornography, part of what authorities say was his nearly two decades of preying on young children.
"This guy's a dangerous predator," said Thomas Manifase, the deputy special agent-in-charge of the Newark division of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "We're glad he's off the streets."
Hildreth, who was arrested in June 2004 as part of an international investigation of Internet child pornography, told investigators he had fondled or raped nine children in the past 16 years. All of the children were boys under 13; one of the victims was 4.
The Essex County Prosecutor's Office charged Hildreth in October with having sex with five of the boys between 1989 and 2004, saying in a press release that some of the offenses took place while he was supervising children for Wesley United Methodist Church in Belleville.
The release said he was an assistant Scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 301 at the church until about five years ago. Manifase said he believed Hildreth was active in the Scout troop for about a dozen years.
Trip McMillan, Scout executive of the Northern Jersey Council of the Boy Scouts of America, said last night he was not aware of the criminal charges and did not have the council's personnel records available in his home to see if there were any complaints about Hildreth.
But he said the Scouts have strict background checks and other policies aimed at preventing pedophiles from becoming involved with Scout troops. He said he would look into the circumstances surrounding Hildreth's years of service.
Hildreth, a small, bespectacled man who appeared in court handcuffed and wearing a gray prison suit, told Judge William Walls that he was born in Staten Island and raised in Belleville. He said he graduated from Belleville High School and spent four years in the Navy.
Hildreth grew up in a modest home on Parkview Avenue with his parents, Charles and Barbara, and a younger sister and brother, Barbara and Brian. Ken Hall, 47, who lives next door, remembers nothing unusual about the family, except that Hildreth was frequently in the company of young boys.
"He was always with the young kids, playing with a couple of younger boys from up the street," he said. "He was in his 20s, the kids were 9 or 10 years old."
Hildreth's parents had died by 2001, and after his siblings both moved to Pennsylvania he appeared to become a loner, Hall said. In summer, the grass would grow a foot high, and after snowstorms, Hildreth would just clear a small path to the front door, he said.
By February 2004, the house had become a shambles, and Hildreth sold it to two brothers "for a song," Hall said. About a year earlier Hildreth had abandoned the home and moved across the Nutley border, living in the basement of some friends' home.
He is accused of sexually abusing the couple's three boys, who were ages 4, 9, and 12 in 2004, according to a lawsuit the family has filed in Superior Court in Newark against Hildreth and Wesley United Methodist Church.
The suit claims Hildreth would take the boys on outings and sometimes brought them to activities at the church, where his parents were longtime members.
The family suspected nothing until Nutley police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents came to the home on June 9, 2004, and conducted a consensual search of the premises, the suit said.
According to an affidavit signed by federal agent Jill Lasseter, the search yielded three photos of pre-pubescent children engaged in sexual activities, which had been printed off a computer. Hildreth admitted his 16 years of exploiting children, the affidavit said.
Nutley police told the Union Avenue family that they also had discovered videotapes that Hildreth had made of their two older boys engaged in sex acts in 1998 in the basement of the church, according to the lawsuit.
It says the 4-year-old described what happened, but the two older boys, who were not told of the videotapes, denied that anything occurred.
In court, Hildreth admitted that he went to Scranton, Pa., in May 2004 and fondled his 7-year-old nephew, who was at times left in his care.
Hildreth has not hired an attorney or answered the charges in the lawsuit. His criminal attorney, Peter Carter, could not be reached after the hearing.
Christopher DePhillips, the church's attorney, said the plaintiffs in the suit have not submitted any documents backing up their charges. But he said his client was not liable in any case because Hildreth was not an employee or agent of the church.
Federal sentencing guidelines recommend a penalty of 78 to 121 months for Hildreth's crimes, although Walls is free to depart somewhat from the guidelines. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Walsh took no position on what Hildreth's sentence should be. The defendant has been held in federal custody in the Passaic County Jail since his arrest.
Federal agents were initially led to Hildreth through a larger investigation into nearly 1,000 people who used their computers and credit cards to subscribe to child porn Web sites linked to Belarussian organized crime figures.
"This is an example of the worst kind of child predator out there," said U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie. "When federal prosecution is appropriate, we will use our resources to keep people like Hildreth in prison for as long as possible."
You said it.
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