> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.smdp.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Helping kids stay net savvy - URL: https://www.smdp.com/helping-kids-stay-net-savvy/ - Published: 2007-02-24T16:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-24T00:08:37.000Z - Author: Melody Hanatani - Tags: Health, Downtown, #archive-import *Assisting young folks to steer clear of sexual predators on Internet* DOWNTOWN SM Alicia Kozakiewicz was just 13 years old when a dangerous man 25 years her senior abducted her, chaining the girl up in his basement for four days. The computer programmer from Virginia and the teenage girl from Pennsylvania met in a chat room more than five years ago. In the age of the Internet and easy accessibility to vulnerable young children through online community Web sites like MySpace and Friendster,it’s a story that has been heard all too frequently. Internet safety was the topic of a joint presentation of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Santa Monica-UCLA Medical Center Rape Treatment Center at the Main Library on Friday. The event was sponsored by the Westside Child Trauma Council at Saint John’s Child & Family Development Center. Through a series of real life stories, Cynthia Flannery, of Rape Treatment Center, and FBI Special Agent Michael Osborn, who runs the local bureau’s Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement (SAFE), gave the audience of roughly 30 parents and child experts a peek into the modus operandi of an Internet sexual predator, in a fashion similar to “Law & Order: Criminal Intent.” Approximately 76 percent of victims of Internet-related sex crimes are between the ages of 13 and 15, according to a 2004 study by the Crimes Against Children Research Center. About 75 percent of those victims were girls and 47 percent of the offenders were at least 20 years older than the children they had victimized. A sexual predator often spends weeks working on a targeted victim, checking into their online profile, finding out their interests, strengths and weaknesses, and preying off those attributes. They gain the child’s trust, becoming their confidante and pretending to be a close friend.Predators also play off a child’s susceptibility to love and romance. They feed off their vulnerability, Flannery said. “Teens don’t know the difference between online reality and face-to-face reality,”she said. A typical MySpace profile was used as an example of how a sexual predator can learn information about a victim.The MySpace page includes a profile consisting of the user’s age, interests, location, school, favorite movies and so forth. The page also includes photos, an “about me” section where the user can write a brief bio, and an area for their “friends”to post comments. With the MySpace page projected in the background, Osborn highlighted the areas to which a sexual predator might pay special attention. From the information on the sample page,a sexual predator would be able to ascertain the girl’s birth date, her high school and college, her dog’s name and login frequency. It’s information that a sexual predator would be able to manipulate to their advantage. “All this and all I did was look at her MySpace profile,”Osborn said. Many convicted sex offenders the FBI arrests had close contact with children through volunteering or their job. Osborn told the story of Jason Handy, a local man who worked at the children’s television network Nickelodeon and started chatting online with a girl from Michigan.Handy would tell young children that if they stuck around with him long enough,he could arrange for the child to have a career in television,Osborn said. The convicted sex offender was on vacation in North Carolina when he decided to take a detour to Michigan to visit his 14-year-old friend. He was caught when a friend of the young girl observed the two kissing in the hallway. The friend told her parents, who contacted the police. When police conducted a search warrant at Handy’s Los Angeles home, they discovered photos of girls with backpacks,child pornography and vinyl envelopes containing underwear and pubic hair. They also discovered a diary, in which Handy wrote:“I am a pedophile, full blown.” Then came the story of George Stan, a former LAPD Officer who was an adviser for the department’s Explorer Program, which allows children to get experience in police activities. Osborn showed a series of chats between Stan and a child. The chats occurred over a period of 22 days and resulted in the child being sexually assaulted by Stan, who was 36 at the time. Over a period of 18 months, Stan allegedly assaulted seven children, six of whom he met online. Two of the children were in the Explorer program. One of the stories told on Friday was how Kozakiewicz came to meet Scott Tyree,the man who was ultimately convicted with her abduction. After establishing what Kozakiewicz perceived to be a trusting relationship, she walked out the door on New Years Day in 2002 and wasn’t discovered until days later, after her parents had checked their daughter’s e-mail and saw mention of a boyfriend.Kozakiewicz’s parents contacted the FBI, which immediately investigated the case as an Internet-related sex crime. It was either ignorance or arrogance that ultimately led to Tyree’s demise. Within 48 hours after her face was plastered on the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Web site, an FBI informant said he saw Kozakiewicz being held captive on a Web cast on Tyree’s personal Web site. Tyree is now serving a 20-year sentence, Flannery said. To illustrate just how confused Kozakiewicz was for her own role in the abduction,Flannery aired a tape of an interview with both Kozakiewicz and her mother, Mary. In the video, Kozakiewicz, now 18, said she could not comprehend why she walked out the door with no money or jacket on a freezing cold January day. “Where was my sanity in that moment?” Kozakiewicz asked herself in the video.“Where was my common sense?” One of the biggest battles that investigators face in an Internet-based sex offense case is convincing the child that it is in their best interest to turn in the suspect. Police officers frequently deal with reluctant victims who say they love the suspect and don’t want to get them in trouble. A Santa Monica woman, who asked she remain anonymous, was sitting during the presentation,shocked by the extent of information she had learned that day. Though she was aware of sexual predators, she was surprised to learn of how they operate before committing their crimes. The mother of three children — two sons and a daughter — does not keep a computer at home. Her children visit the library whenever they need to use the computer,and do so under her watchful eye or when there are other parents around. “I would rather not have a computer at home and make sure the child’s use of it is minimized,”she said. The Internet has become another means for sexual offenders to reach children, she said. Much like how she tells her children to screen phone calls and never answer the door when she isn’t home, the single mother has informed her children that the “bad people” can find them online. “It’s just another point of access for them to talk to you,”she said. *Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 24, 2007.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/022407.pdf?ref=smdp.com)