Child Sexual Abuse Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Senate Passes Bill Making AI Generated Pornography A Felony

The use of photos to create deep fakes of sexually explicit content is becoming a trend among child predators. Photos of children can be plugged into AI to create child pornography.

In February, pop superstar Taylor Swift became the target of artificially generated sexually explicit photos using Artificial Intelligence. AI creators used photos and videos of Swift to create a sexually explicit deep fake.

The use of photos to create deep fakes of sexually explicit content is becoming a trend among child predators. Photos of children can be plugged into AI to create child pornography.

Senate Bill 740 prohibits digital manipulation of sexually explicit content that includes minors.

Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, is one of the sponsors of the bill. She said just two days ago she received an email from a constituent whose 14-year-old son had been superimposed using AI onto the body of a naked person. The creators were trying to extort money out of the victim and his family.

“Thankfully he went straight to his parents and they called the police,” Rucker said. “Just so you know, the police told them we don’t know what we can do about this.”

AI depictions of child sexual exploitation and abuse are on the rise.

Senate Bill 741 prohibits the creation, production, distribution, or possession of artificially generated child pornography. Sen. Charles Trump, R-Morgan, sponsored and introduced the bill.

“This bill makes clear that if you do it through the use of artificial intelligence, and generate images, then it’s going to be subjected to felony penalties under West Virginia law,” Trump said.

Both bills passed unanimously and now head to the House for consideration.

Sexual Violence Awareness Advocates Ask Legislators To Change Existing Laws

Advocates from across the state gathered at the state capitol Thursday to bring attention to sexual violence.

It was Sexual Violence Awareness Day at the Capitol. The Foundation for Rape Information and Services, or FRIS, was there to educate legislators and the public about problems in the system.

Nikki Godfrey, the assistant state coordinator with FRIS, said the organization is focused on two issues this legislative session: updating the offense definition of extortion and exemptions for marital rape.

Senate Bill 175 updates offenses of extortion and attempted extortion.

“Which provides additional protection for if folks say a student is being told that they can’t get their grade unless they do a sexual favor for a professor,” Godfrey said. “So there’s just a gap in our code, when we’re looking at coercion, and being able to provide that protection for an individual.”

House Bill 4982 would remove marriage from the definitions listed for crimes of sexual offenses.

“The other one has been the talk of the town the last year, and that’s really just providing equal protection for individuals who are married in our state,” Godfrey said. “So right now, our definition of sexual contact says that it can’t be protection for folks who are married. So if someone forces or threatens or, you know, says there’s bodily harm possible, and they engage in sexual contact with someone, it could be charged, but not if the person is married.”

Godfrey said there was a lot of confusion surrounding marital rape during last year’s legislative session.

“I think last year, there were just a lot of misconceptions around it and confusion about what that meant, you know, how that affects people who are married,” Godfrey said. “And you know, when we look at forcible compulsion, there has to be a threat of bodily injury. So it rises to the level that you know, if someone can report that it could be investigated and charged.”

Godfrey said after conversations with lawmakers in the upper rotunda, FRIS is feeling hopeful.

“I really feel like just addressing some of the misconceptions and providing some examples to folks of what that could look like and why it is important to individuals in West Virginia to add that protection,” Godfrey said. “So I feel like that folks are really understanding and hearing it.”

On the Senate floor, Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, spoke in favor of designating Feb. 1 as Sexual Violence Awareness Day.

“West Virginia ranks fifth in the country for lifetime prevalence of contact sexual violence, 61.7 percent are females,” Rucker said. “Out of the 47 percent of assaults committed by acquaintances in West Virginia, 82 percent are by someone known by that victim a direct relationship to that victim in West Virginia, one in six women and one in 21 men will be victims of attempted or attempted or completed sexual assault.”

Student Pregnancy, Cybersecurity Focus Of Education Committees

To start the week, education committees in both chambers have focused on supporting students in difficult situations.

According to the most recent data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, West Virginia has the eighth highest teen birth rate in the country.

During their meeting Monday, the House Education Committee discussed House Bill 5179. Also known as Jaycie’s Law, the bill would require that each county board develop a written attendance policy for pregnant and parenting students and excuse all absences due to pregnancy or parenting related conditions up to eight weeks.

The bill originated from a social worker in Cabell County who had seen the school system requiring teenage girls to go back to school one week after giving birth.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, moved to amend language that would require schools to refer pregnant students to pregnancy health organizations.

“It requires the school to refer a girl to an unlicensed health care provider,” he said. “A lot of them also are religious based, maybe they’re not a member of that religion. There’s a lot of issues with that, sending somebody, putting it in code to go to this place that looks like a doctor’s office, but isn’t a doctor’s office.”

Pushkin’s amendment originally removed any reference to pregnancy health organizations from the bill. But after discussion, he reformed the amendment to make the requirement a permissive choice to refer students to the organizations.

Del. Rolland Jennings, R-Preston, said he believed the bill’s referral to resources fulfilled the lawmakers’ promise to support pregnant women made when the state’s abortion restriction was passed in 2022.

“This is giving support where the schools have to at least discuss with these young mothers places where they can go and get support for them,” he said. “If we make it permissive, some schools may do it. Others don’t want to get involved, won’t do it. And I think by making it so they have to do it, we’re doing the best for these young ladies.”

The amendment did pass, and the bill was recommended to the full chamber.

Other Business

The House committee also advanced bills regarding in-state tuition for all National Guard members and their dependents, as well as Hope Scholarship funding.

House Bill 4945 makes several changes to code relating to the Hope Scholarship, including permitting the Hope Scholarship board to provide an estimate of the program’s future enrollment to the Department of Education by Dec. 10 of each year for funding, rather than relying on the prior year’s enrollment.

“This would allow us instead of it being solely based on the number of applications received in the prior year, it would allow us to estimate,” said Amy Willard, assistant treasurer of savings programs for the West Virginia State Treasurer’s Office. “We would do that using trends that we’re seeing in the program, any data that we have on birth, stuff like that to try to estimate that incoming kindergarten class. But there is still the provision that if there was unused money, like at the end of the fiscal year, that that appropriation would be reduced. So we would still always estimate what our need was for the year.”

Pushkin again moved to amend the bill, this time excluding Hope Scholarship funds from being used out of state. About $300,000 in Hope funds were spent out of state in the program’s first year.

However, Del. Wayne Clark, R-Jefferson, pointed out that a similar restriction had been proposed when the Hope Scholarship was being created.

“One of the reasons why it was voted down at that time was because of the purchase of curriculum and purchase of, paying for field trips or paying for other things that the state does buy out of state,” he said. “And when we’re talking about, you know, the amount of students that do potentially attend border school, schools that are outside of our border are from border counties. Remember, we’re still trying to give the parents of West Virginia an option for their education. And that’s the whole purpose of the Hope Scholarship.”

The amendment was rejected, and House Bill 4945 was recommended to the full House, with a reference to the Finance Committee.

Other bills advanced by the committee:

H. B. 4882, extending in-state tuition rates to all members and veterans of the National Guard, reserves, and armed forces as well as their spouses and dependents.
H. B. 5038, relating to research and economic development agreements for state institutions of higher education.
H. B. 5050, relating to authorizing legislative rules regarding higher education.
H. B. 5056, relating to substitute service personnel positions.
H. B. 5153, relating to revising, updating and streamlining the requirements governing the West Virginia Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Scholarship.

Teaching Cyber Security

In the Senate Education Committee Tuesday morning, senators heard from law enforcement about the need for students to be educated about online safety.

Senate Bill 466 requires the state board to develop an education program to teach safety while accessing technology. The committee previously discussed and laid over the bill on Jan. 18, and both times the discussion focused on the requirement for instruction on the risks associated with sharing sexually suggestive or sexually explicit materials.

SGT Jillian Yeager of the State Police’s Crimes Against Children Unit told the committee her office of 12 investigators has received 6,000 tips of sexual cybercrimes against minors in the past four years, mirroring a national spike during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. She said education like the kind proposed in Senate Bill 466 would go a long way to reducing such instances.

“I firmly believe that if we mandate cyber safety training in the state, that it will greatly reduce our number of cyber tips simply by educating children to help themselves not become victims to these predators online,” Yeager said.

The committee voted to recommend the bill to the full Senate, and laid over the only other bill on the agenda due to time constraints.

Senate Recognizes Child Advocacy Day

Monday was Child Advocacy Day at the Capitol, bringing together child welfare advocates to provide resources and educate the public.

The Senate passed a resolution making Monday Child Advocacy Day at the legislature. Special guests from the West Virginia Child Advocacy Network, or WVCAN, were set up outside the Senate chambers to spread their message.

Kate Flack is the CEO of WVCAN. She said the group was at the Capitol to celebrate the work of local child advocacy centers and their multidisciplinary teams in the past year and to urge the lawmakers to continue to support services to child survivors of abuse.

“Every year, we want to make sure that kids are as safe as possible so that we have laws that keep them safe, that makes sure that those who perpetrate child abuse are held accountable,” Flack said. “We also make sure that the folks who are doing the hard work of supporting children and their healing journey are supported financially, that CPS has support, that law enforcement has support, that prosecuting attorneys have support and that kids have access to mental health services and medical services.”

According to Flack, in the last year 4,879 new children were served by WVCAN’s 21 child advocacy centers.

“A child advocacy center is a child-friendly facility where treatment professionals and investigative professionals work together to hold offenders accountable and help kids heal,” Flack said. “So that includes law enforcement, CPS prosecuting attorneys, mental health providers, medical providers, our forensic interviewers and family advocates at the child advocacy centers. We meet monthly with each of those multidisciplinary investigative teams to coordinate on case outcomes to make sure that kids can heal and offenders are held accountable.”

WVCAN serves 46 of West Virginia’s 55 counties.

“We’re really proud of the work that’s being done, more than 10 percent increase in kids served in the last five years,” Flack said. “We know the services are no less needed now than they were before.”

Flack said WVCAN is expanding its mental health services through support from the Highmark Foundation.

“We’re looking to expand those services even further because we know that kids who have trauma histories do so much better when they get the type of support and medical and mental health support that they need,” Flack said.

A recent study of WVCAN’s services found that West Virginia children are 4.7 times more likely to encounter drug endangerment than the national average.

“Child advocacy centers really helped communities thrive, they are restoring the fabric of our society,” Flack said. “One in 10 kids will be sexually abused by their 18th birthday. So this is not a small problem. We need all hands on deck to support these children. And so we are hopeful that the legislature will continue to do so.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

W.Va. Children 5 Times More At Risk Of Drug Endangerment

The West Virginia Child Advocacy Group, or WVCAN, saw a nearly 10 percent increase in children served in the past five years.

The West Virginia Child Advocacy Group (WVCAN) saw a nearly 10 percent increase in new children served in the past five years according to a new report released on Thursday.

WVCAN operates 21 Child Advocacy Centers (CAC) which provide official service to 46 of 55 counties in the state.

Each CAC provides a safe, child-friendly facility where child protection, criminal justice and child treatment professionals work together to investigate abuse, hold offenders accountable and help children heal.

Kate Flack is the CEO of WVCAN. She said awareness of the program could account for the increase in new children served.

“Every time that we help build awareness, more children are disclosing to mandated reporters, more children’s cases are being investigated by CPS and law enforcement, and CPS and law enforcement make referrals to child advocacy centers,” Flack said. “So the children can come to a safe child-friendly facility to do a forensic interview with a trained forensic interviewer, who asks questions in a non-leading developmentally appropriate way.”

According to the report, children from 0 to six years old make up 25 percent of new children served at a CAC. Children ages seven to 12 account for 43 percent of new children served at a CAC. Finally, children ages 13 to 18 years old account for 32 percent of new children served at a CAC.

Flack said the majority of West Virginia offenders are over the age of 18.

“It represents the vulnerability that our children face,” Flack said. “That 96 percent of our alleged offenders were someone that child knew. So a lot of times when people think about child sexual abuse or physical abuse, they imagine stranger danger. And while there are, you know, cases of that, for sure, the majority, the vast majority of abuse that kids face, are people who are in positions of trust.”

The report shows 14 percent of the West Virginian children served were at a CAC because of allegations of drug endangerment. That is 4.7 times higher than the national average.

“Knowing that with poly-victimization, with the risks that kids face, if they are drug endangered, not only for neglect, you know, so not receiving adequate supervision, but it increases the risk of other types of abuse,” Flack said.

Flack said she is committed to her work and hopeful for state and federal investment into the program.

“The CDC lifetime costs to society for each victim of abuse is $210,000,” Flack said. “And so I mean, if the average cost for services for each of these children from the CAC is between $1,000 and $2,000 per kid, and so really, I mean, a little, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound, or an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

Diocese Releases Names of Clergy Accused of Sexual Abuse

West Virginia’s Roman Catholic archdiocese released the names Thursday of priests or deacons who it said have been credibly accused of child sexual abuse since 1950.

Eleven of the 18 accused clergy are deceased, the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston said in a news release. None of the others are in active ministry.

The clergymen were named by the church’s local district in a document summarizing the complaints.

More than 2,000 files containing tens of thousands of documents were reviewed. The diocese hopes the release “will be one of many steps taken to restore trust with parishioners and the broader community in West Virginia,” Wheeling-Charleston Archbishop William Lori said.

The list included brief descriptions of accusations included inappropriate touching, abuse or solicitation.

One of the accused priests, the Rev. Felix Owino, was deported to Africa following his 2010 conviction in northern Virginia of aggravated sexual battery of a girl. Owino had served as an associate pastor at a Catholic church in Weirton and also taught at Wheeling Jesuit University.

The case of Brother Rogers Hannan, who served at two parishes in McDowell County, was referred to a prosecutor. He was convicted and sentenced in 2014 to up to 10 years in prison for solicitation of a minor.

The Rev. Victor Frobas, who served at multiple West Virginia parishes, was convicted in 1988 of molesting two boys at a parish in suburban St. Louis. He served more than two years in prison and died in 1993.

The Rev. Paul J. Schwarten, who served at parishes in Weston, Ronceverte and White Sulphur Springs more than a half century ago, served 18 months in prison for inappropriately touching a minor in Nebraska. He died in 1993.

Also released is a list of 13 accused priests from other regions or dioceses who served in West Virginia but had no claims filed against them with the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston.

The list was released two months after Pope Francis accepted the resignation of West Virginia Bishop Michael Bransfield and authorized an investigation into allegations he sexually harassed adults.

“This list undoubtedly reveals the failings of the Diocese of Wheeling-Charleston to fully protect young people within the Church,” Lori said. “Rightly, many have a cause for anger and pain. I offer my sincerest apologies to all victims of sexual abuse and vow to strive to take proper action to ensure the safety of children and others in our care.”

A sexual abuse hotline created through the Diocese can be reached at 1-833-230-5656.