Is There a 'Sickening Child Porn Crisis Infecting' the Federal Government?

The reported arrest on Sunday night of a State Department counter-terrorism official is only the latest indicator of a growing “crisis” of potential crimes against children by government employees, according to a roundup published Monday by The Daily Beast.

Daniel Rosen, who according to news reports was arrested last month in connection with soliciting sex with a minor online, was picked up over the weekend on voyeurism charges after police searched his cellphone.  

“Public records and reports reviewed by The Daily Beast show that at least 22 current and former local, state, and federal employees have been convicted of crimes ranging from distributing child pornography to conscience-shocking acts of violence against infants,” wrote reporter Shane Harris. “The crimes have occurred over the past decade, with many of the cases coming in the past four years. Experts say the numbers are likely far higher and may not be thoroughly documented by law enforcement agencies across the United States.”

The Beast’s evidence includes the 2012 arrest of a State Department senior technology project manager on 10 counts of possessing child porn, as well as a special agent with the Bureau of Diplomatic Security who in 2012 drew a seven-year sentence for possessing what amounted to 30,000 illegal images on his home computer. In 2008 a Foreign Service Officer was slapped with a 20-year sentence for child porn and videotaping sex with girls in his overseas consular office.

A former CIA station chief in Algeria is now serving five years in prison for drugging and raping a Muslim woman as well as illegal weapons possession and cocaine use. The Beast counted six former employees at the Homeland Security Department imprisoned for sex crimes, adding that a U.S. Army lawyer in 2011 pleaded guilty to “forcible sodomy with an infant” and making and distributing violent images of child abuse.

And the former acting director of cyber security at the Health and Human Services Department in 2012 was convicted of participation in a child porn ring that circulated violent images.

Precise statistics on such crimes across government or in broader society, the report said, have not been compiled.

(Image via Mare Salerno / Shutterstock.com)