NYC Child Porn Ring Arrests: Rabbi, Nurse, Police Officer Among 70 Ensnared In Massive Sweep

At least 70 people, including a rabbi, nurse, Boy Scout leader, paramedic and a police officer, have been arrested in the New York City area in a massive five-week investigation into child pornography.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement was expected to announce the arrests on Wednesday in what officials called one of the largest child porn sweeps in New York City, the Associated Press reported. At least 70 men and one woman were arrested in the case, which focused on the trading of child porn on the Internet.

"If this operation does anything, it puts the lie to the belief that the people who do this are not productive members of society,” James Hayes of ICE’s New York office told the AP. He said the arrests show that trading child porn “is not something that is just done by unemployed drifters who live in their parents' basement.”

The suspects, including a New Jersey woman who allegedly used Skype to show her young daughter “in compromising positions,” were ensnared when ICE and NYPD detectives created a website that solicited the sharing of illicit images, NBC New York reported. Victims in the images ranged in age from newborns to 17.

The operation led to the seizure of 600 computers, tablets, smartphones and other devices, the AP reported. More arrests may be forthcoming as authorities comb through the devices’ hard drives. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will assist in the operation by going over the images to see if any of the victims are in their database, according to the AP.

"We refer to each of these images as a crime scene photo because that's exactly what they are,'' John Ryan, the center’s chief executive officer, told NBC New York.

The January arrest of Brian Fanelli, a former police chief of Mount Vernon, New York, on federal child porn charges led authorities to launch the five-week investigation. Fanelli, who pleaded not guilty earlier this week, allegedly told authorities he started looking at child porn for research and that it grew into a “personal interest,” the AP reported.

The Boy Scout leader who was arrested also coached a youth baseball team, and the rabbi home-schooled his children and other kids. Another suspect used hidden cameras to film his children’s friends.