Diplomatic Security Agent Pleads Guilty to Child Porn Charges

February 15, 2012 // No Comments »

Hey, another job opening at the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security as our favorite “Special” Agent and Regional Security Officer from the American Embassy in London pleaded guilty to child porn charges.

According to the amusingly named web site gangsgoonsandgunz.com, the Department of State Diplomatic Security officer snared in an undercover FBI child pornography investigation pleaded guilty to a single felony count, according to a deal struck with federal prosecutors. By copping to transporting child porn, James Cafferty, 45, now faces a mandatory minimum prison term of five years (though a judge could sentence him to up to 20 years in custody). Cafferty is seen in the mug shot at right, taken from his online arrest record.

Details revealed say that Cafferty had in his sweaty hand more than 30,000 child porn images. Best of all, during questioning by federal agents, Cafferty “admitted ‘photoshopping’ himself into scenes constituting child pornography.”

According to one report, Cafferty’s use of his PayPal account to access child porn went back to 2006, leaving open questions about where Diplomatic Security was (answer: getting ready to chase down the Wikileaks of the future) while its employee was helping adjudicate the security clearances of others and having wide-access to personnel and other records in London and elsewhere. You can read parts of the sting email Cafferty responded to and get an even clearer idea of his motivations, or here.

So, a cop with a child porn conviction… wonder how that prison thing is gonna work out?

Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the Department of State, the Department of Defense or any other entity of the US Government. The Department of State does not approve, endorse or authorize this blog or book. Follow us on Twitter!

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Tale of Two Dictators

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If you’re Syria’s evil dictator, Assad, the Secretary of State and her running dog UN Ambassador call you bad names. The say “your days are numbered” and that “you have lost all legitimacy.” Some Foggy Bottom lickspittal says that you are a “dead man walking,” and in a somewhat weird mix of things, refers to your country as “Pyongyang in the Levant.”

However, if you are the dictator of Yemen, the nice one who turned a blind eye to US drone attacks in his own country and even covered up drone strikes by claiming the bombs were his own, the State Department rolls out the red carpet.

Your dictator-in-residence status package begins with a medical visa, the travel document of choice for pro-US dictators such as the former Shah of Iran. Yemen’s thug Saleh is apparently staying at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in New York City while he gets his “medical treatment.” Subtlety is not a dictator trait.

Better yet, the State Department treatment does not end with your visa. State will in fact cover your dictator ass even as you relax in the Ritz’ spa.

Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh is in the United States with full diplomatic immunity, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s legal advisor has written the Pentagon, and should not be compelled to provide sworn testimony for the Guantánamo war court. State Department Legal Advisor Harold Hongju Koh (photo above in his crazy ’70′s ‘do) wrote the letter to the Pentagon’s chief war crimes prosecutor, Army Brig. Gen. Mark Martins, opposing a request for a subpoena.

Koh’s letter makes no mention of Saleh’s medical treatment. Rather, Koh invoked “the particular importance attached by the United States to avoiding compulsion of an oral deposition of President Saleh in view of international norms and the implications of the litigation for the Nation’s foreign relations.” He did not describe those implications in the letter.

So, to sum up: Middle East dictators we don’t like get outed. Middle East dictators we do like live at the Ritz and are given immunity. Arab Spring cheerleaders, please make a note of this.

Copyright © 2012. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of the Department of State, the Department of Defense or any other entity of the US Government. The Department of State does not approve, endorse or authorize this blog or book. Follow us on Twitter!

Posted in * Most Popular, Embassy/State