Even Elderly Men Collect Child Porn, Commit Rape

My pal Chris and I went out to catch the Crazy Heart film, the other day and he commented on the Child Porn post, wondering what prompted it.  I told him that at this point I am feel a little like a stone skipping from one local website to another and sometimes as I bounce from place to place I'm struck by the patterns in local prosecutions.  It was the frequency with which you see prosecutions of all sorts of folks that is striking to me.

On February 6th, Savannahnow.com had this article about the 80 year old man, sentenced for having more than 15,000 child porn images on his computer: 

"An 80-year-old Savannah man has been sentenced to serve two years in prison for his conviction on a charge of sexual exploitation of children.  David J. Hesrick was sentenced to 10 years total Thursday after Chatham County Superior Court Judge John E. Morse Jr. convicted him during a bench trial.  In addition to the sexual exploitation count, Morse also convicted the defendant on two counts of making false statements to police.  Evidence presented by Assistant District Attorney Emily Thomas showed police were called to Hesrick's southside home after he and his roommate quarreled, office spokeswoman Alicia Johnson said.  Officers found the flap was over the roommate's discovery of pornographic images of children on Hesrick's computer.  Investigators found at least 15,000 images and 12 videos containing pornographic images of children, Johnson said.."
____________________________
One of the first adult survivors of child sex abuse I represented was a woman named, "Star" who had been raped and sexually abused by her father who at the time of his civil prosecution was quite aged.  "Star" was agitated that this man was not behind bars because despite his age she assured me he was still an active perpetrator. 

Whenever "Star" learned of her father's whereabouts she would printout flyers with his picture, drive to this region of OurState and paper cars in shopping center parking lots.   She would give the local law enforcement copies of the flyers.  Sure enough, this aged perpetrator would abuse again, and eventually he was taken into custody and convicted of molesting a child. 

While I don't necessarily equate consumers of child porn with perpetrators of child sex abuse, elderly criminals of all sort continue to commit habitual crimes.  Experience tells me not to be surprised that the elderly abusers continue their lifelong habits of sexually exploiting children when they think they can get away with it; so many trusting parents are surprised to the detriment of their children.

Oh, the picture is of Giovanni Cocozza, a 77 year old serial rapist.