Readers of this blog know sex crimes against children are committed by a wide swath of people, primarily men, at every conceivable strata of society. Here is another infuriating example. Today’s sex criminal is Mark Black, age 50, previously an attorney for the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (an independent federal agency created to maintain stability and public confidence in the nation’s financial system), married with two teenage sons. This attorney/family man, previously served as president of the board of the Arlington Aquatic Club, a renowned Virginia swim club that includes U.S. Olympic swimmers among its alumni.
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/23/fdic-attorney-mark-black-guilty-of-child-sex-exploitation.html
This was pretty big news in the swimming community, as you can imagine.
Despite his busy life, this man found time to be a member of two online groups dedicated to exploiting children for at least almost four years. These groups were dedicated to locating prepubescent girls online and convincing them to livestream themselves engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Black and his co-conspirators covertly recorded these livestreams and shared the videos with each other.
He was indicted on federal charges in September 2023 and arrested the next day. The Wall Street Journal reported that Black remained on paid administrative leave with the FDIC for 10 weeks after his indictment. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/law/fdic-lawyer-stayed-on-paid-leave-for-weeks-after-child-porn-arrest-fe0800be .
Black’s electronic devices were found to contain approximately 172,707 images of suspected child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Over 1,300 of those files depicted identified victims of his conduct. He entered a guilty plea at the end of January and faced a mandatory minimum 15-year prison sentence. Yesterday Black was sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for conspiring to sexually exploit numerous children.
So the next time you can’t believe some suit with a good job, a family and a big volunteer gig could ever be a pedophile or a creator/purveyor of CSAM, remember Mark Black.
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Will they get more than six days in county lock up ?
The court rejected Black’s attorneys’ Jane Burgess-like argument that he was an excellent candidate for continued outpatient therapy, your Honor! https://www.cnbc.com/2024/01/23/fdic-attorney-mark-black-guilty-of-child-sex-exploitation.html. To your point, Joe, state court judges seem to often buy this bullshit, and with prosecutors offering up one-year sentence plea agreements in pedophile rapist priest cases and claiming victory–well, let’s just say the divide is pretty big.
I cannot recall any case where a guy like this was rehabilitated. The only case I had in over 25 years was a guy who was not attracted to minors. He just was stupid with computers and he got five years. That was in agreement with the court authorized expert. Seems there is so much probation, time served and counseling.
Sounds like a genuine scumbag predator alright. 🙁
I don’t know if I ever believed, “some suit with a good job, a family and a big volunteer gig could [not] ever be a pedophile or a creator/purveyor of CSAM”.
There really isn’t, of course, any criteria/profile for which that (could [not] ever be a pedophile or a creator/purveyor of CSAM) would be true.
Persons with zero children in their lives, and no legitimating access to children either (juvenile sports coach, BSA, whatever), sound like a more remote probability. But then, some persons like that turn out to be classic “stranger danger” maniacs, preying on random kids they have no connection to (ala Joseph Edward Duncan III).
I watched the Netflix documentary on BSA for the first time, recently. Felt bad for the man hired to create child protection protocols for them, who was sincere but got no cooperation from the fools who hired him! (who apparently were not).
The BSA’s long-standing and mistaken belief, that a “sufficiently masculine” screening criteria would ensure child safety, a tragic example of that type of folly.