28 Trial Lawyer • Winter 2022 Carol Hepburn By Carol Hepburn Trading and downloading child sex abuse material is rampant on the internet. Survivors are finding their voices and seeking representation. Remedies are available, both through restitution in criminal prosecutions and civil actions under 18 USC 2255. Serendipity led me to represent these survivors. It is one of the most rewarding areas of practice —not necessarily financially, but certainly in taking care of my clients and making a difference in their lives. I’ve been privileged to be part of a team taking a case to the United States Supreme Court, and I’ve helped a number of clients tell their stories to journalists, filmmakers and ministers in the British Parliament. My husband, OTLA member Bill Savage, jokes it is all because of him. In 2008 we attended the AAJ convention. Bill prevailed upon me to go to yet another reception, put on by the National Crime Victims Bar Association (NCVBA). As we left, I took one of the membership applications. Among the many networking benefits of NCVBA is case referral. In October 2008, I received a referral via NCVBA, a call from the stepfather of the young woman who became my first image abuse client. She had been sexually abused by her father who had posted videos of the crime online. The family had two, 55-gallon barrels full of notices from the Department of Justice concerning prosecutions involving her images. I had no idea what the remedy might be, but I started looking for one. Child sex abuse material online (CSAM),1 is an international problem of epidemic proportions. The June 2021 report of the United States Sentencing Commission on “Federal Sentencing of Child Pornography: Non-Production Offenses” makes key findings illustrating the problem. These offenses involve voluminous quantities of images depicting graphic offenses against younger and younger victims. In 2019, the median number of images in a federal prosecution was 4,265. Over half the 2019 nonproduction offenses involved images of infants or toddlers; 99.4% of offenders had images of prepubescent victims. The commission report refers to the graphic nature of the material. The descriptions of the CSAM in charging documents, plea agreements and pre-sentencing memoranda are bone-chilling. Common fallacies plague the public perception of child sex abuse imagery. Some think they are “just pictures” and not as harmful as the original sexual abuse. But for a survivor, having their private pain made public can be worse. It is like a cancer metastasized. One of my clients said, “One would think nothing could be worse than the initial abuse. But that thought is wrong. The recordings of my abuse have been spread across the world. I now have to relive these events forever. Like a skipping vinyl record playing this sad song for eternity.” Sharon Cooper, MD, FAAP, developmental forensic pediatrician internationally recognized for her work on child sex abuse image exploitation, has trained medical, mental health and law enforcement professionals, including Interpol. Her 2016 documentary “Not Just Pictures” explores the issues faced by CSAM survivors including the lack of therapists adequately trained in the unique issues presented by a patient who is a victim in new crimes every day, as images of their abuse proliferate. Another fallacy is that CSAM is just on the dark web. A recent report by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P) notes that most CSAM is found on the clear web. But, the dark web and TOR, its most popular subset, “appear to act as the main conduit for directing individuals to areas on the clear web ADVOCATING FOR SURVIVORS OF CHILD SEX ABUSE IMAGE OFFENSES
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