Suspected Cape Town paedophile to be extradited to US
A former City of Cape Town employee will this week be extradited to the US to stand trial on child porn charges.
|||Cape Town – A former City of Cape Town data capturer and suspected paedophile will be boarding a plane on Thursday destined for the United States where he will stand trial for the alleged production and dissemination of child pornography.
Denver Carolissen allegedly sexually abused an eight-year-old girl and then sent the images to two undercover agents in Maine in the United States, using the pseudonym Danielle Dickens.
He also allegedly sent other images depicting other minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
In court papers Carolissen is alleged to have told one of the undercover agents, David Fife, he had many hardcore pornographic videos to “trade”, and “private stuff” depicting a 12-year-old girl with whom he had “played” with since she was eight.
A Western Cape High Court judgement in May, which dismissed his application to appeal his extradition, details the United States case against him.
He allegedly “sent two pornographic images depicting the sexual molestation of a child estimated to be between 6 and 8 years of age, claiming that these were pictures of a child known to him and that he was the molester in question”.
The undercover agent approached US authorities to access details of the email account used by “Danielle Dickens”.
“Through this information he was able to establish that the account was created in March 2013 using a designated Internet Protocol (“IP”) address and that it was set up by a person who furnished a South African cellphone number. Evidently, each computer machine (whether a laptop, desktop or tablet) has its own unique IP address”.
The investigation revealed that the gmail account contained about 120 000 emails, almost all of child pornography. One of the emails, sent in August 2014, depicted a video of an adult male raping a young female child.
After a request from the United States government, Carolissen was provisionally arrested in November 2014 by South African authorities to stand trial in the Federal Court in the State of Maine.
On July 22, 2015 the Kuils River Magistrate’s Court found him liable to be extradited to the United States. His appeal against that decision was dismissed by the Western Cape High Court in May.
The matter then rested with the Justice Minister who has now given Carolissen’s extradition the green light.
Carolissen was also sent for psychiatric evaluation and in May 2015, mental health experts found that he “fulfilled the criteria for a diagnosis of paedophilia having reported a long-standing sexual attraction to children”.
He faces three counts of sexual exploitation of a minor and five counts of transportation of child pornography. If found guilty, he can be imprisoned for between fifteen and thirty years, while the distribution of child pornography carries fines of up to $US 250 000 in each case.
The May judgement said: “If the allegations against him are true, the appellant has sexually molested, and subjected to the manufacture of pornography, children who were intimately known to him, as well as homeless children whom he lured off the streets of the Northern Suburbs of the Cape Peninsula with promises of sweets and money. The families and communities close to, or associated with, such victims have every right to know about the damage that the appellant might have caused to them in order that the children concerned might be rendered the appropriate care and assistance.”
Local police authorities were also harshly criticised, with the court ruling that “frankly put, we are astounded by the failure of the SAPS to charge the appellant in this matter…in a matter such as this there was no reason to hold-off and play a “wait and see” game while the extradition proceedings followed their course”.
African News Agency