New legal issue; Payment for child porn victims
Associated Press -- Amy Forliti
Issue date: 2/8/10 Section: News
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - It's been more than decade since "Amy," as she's known in court papers, was first sexually abused by her uncle. The abuse ended long ago and he's in prison, but the pictures he made when she was 8 or 9 are among the most widely circulated child pornography images online.
Now the 20-year-old woman is taking aim at anyone who would view those images and asking for restitution in hundreds of criminal cases around the country.
Her requests and those filed by other victims of child pornography are forcing federal judges nationwide to grapple with tough legal questions: Is someone who possesses an abusive image responsible for the harm suffered by a particular child? And how much should that person have to pay?
"It is hard to describe what it feels like to know that at any moment, anywhere, someone is looking at pictures of me as a little girl being abused by my uncle and is getting some kind of sick enjoyment from it. It's like I am being abused over and over again," Amy wrote in court papers.
"I want it all erased. I want it all stopped. But I am powerless to stop it just like I was powerless to stop my uncle," she wrote.
The issue of criminal restitution in child pornography possession cases emerged last February in Connecticut when a federal judge said he would order a man convicted of possessing and distributing child pornography to pay about $200,000 to Amy. The judge said it was the first criminal case in which someone convicted of possessing illegal images - but not creating them - would be required to pay restitution. (The case settled for $130,000 before the judge issued his final order.)
Since then, requests for restitution have picked up as more victims are identified - and as a couple of victims, including Amy, have hired attorneys, said Meg Garvin, executive director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute in Portland, Ore.
Hundreds of requests have been filed nationwide, most of them by Amy's attorney, James Marsh of New York. Marsh said that as recently as five years ago, restitution would have been impossible because victims wouldn't have known when someone was caught with an image of them. The Crime Victims Rights Act of 2004 set up a system for notifying the victims. Now, Marsh gets several notices a day on behalf of Amy.
Now the 20-year-old woman is taking aim at anyone who would view those images and asking for restitution in hundreds of criminal cases around the country.
Her requests and those filed by other victims of child pornography are forcing federal judges nationwide to grapple with tough legal questions: Is someone who possesses an abusive image responsible for the harm suffered by a particular child? And how much should that person have to pay?
"It is hard to describe what it feels like to know that at any moment, anywhere, someone is looking at pictures of me as a little girl being abused by my uncle and is getting some kind of sick enjoyment from it. It's like I am being abused over and over again," Amy wrote in court papers.
"I want it all erased. I want it all stopped. But I am powerless to stop it just like I was powerless to stop my uncle," she wrote.
The issue of criminal restitution in child pornography possession cases emerged last February in Connecticut when a federal judge said he would order a man convicted of possessing and distributing child pornography to pay about $200,000 to Amy. The judge said it was the first criminal case in which someone convicted of possessing illegal images - but not creating them - would be required to pay restitution. (The case settled for $130,000 before the judge issued his final order.)
Since then, requests for restitution have picked up as more victims are identified - and as a couple of victims, including Amy, have hired attorneys, said Meg Garvin, executive director of the National Crime Victim Law Institute in Portland, Ore.
Hundreds of requests have been filed nationwide, most of them by Amy's attorney, James Marsh of New York. Marsh said that as recently as five years ago, restitution would have been impossible because victims wouldn't have known when someone was caught with an image of them. The Crime Victims Rights Act of 2004 set up a system for notifying the victims. Now, Marsh gets several notices a day on behalf of Amy.
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