Since the formation of its Internet child predator task force seven months ago, police have arrested 10 men who have come to the city to have sex with children.
Most of the predators were married with children and held white-collar jobs — a U.S. Navy captain, a software designer, a NASA engineer and a human resource executive at The Washington Times.
The five-person unit is a partner of the Northern Virginia/Washington, D.C.-area Internet Crimes Against Children, a national task force formed in 2004 to help police catch people who prey on children in chat rooms. The area ICAC has trained more than 233 police and prosecutors. The 30 area affiliates this year have made more than 60 arrests.
Last week, a NASA engineer from Maryland pleaded guilty to attempting to entice a child from an Internet chat room to have sex. Kesarimangalam Kannan, 56, of Germantown, thought he was chatting with a 13-year-old girl, but was actually talking to Metropolitan Police Detective Timothy Palchak. Kannan asked for sex and an address to meet her.
But Kannan showed up the doorsteps of a D.C. house 30 minutes early, confusing police who didn’t realize that Kannan was the man they sought. The police shooed Kannan away because they didn’t want his presence to ruin the sting.
Kannan didn’t contact Palchak’s character for three weeks. Kannan explained he was scared by police, but he really wanted to see the girl. He agreed to meet at a Subway sandwich shop. There police recognized Kannan as the man who eluded them earlier at the D.C. home and arrested him. He faces a minimum of five years in prison.
Palchak also helped arrest a serious pedophile living in the United Kingdom who was trafficking in child pornography around the world. The man had an extensive list of Internet contacts and police are tracking down thosepeople.
