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Object of Their Affections

5798_fdfePeople develop addictions to shield themselves from intolerably painful feelings. An addiction always creates harmful, often ignored consequences. Only when the addiction becomes unmanageable will people do something about it. Love addicts spend much time, effort on a person to whom they are addicted. Love addicts value this person above themselves, and their focus on the beloved other often is obsessive. This behavior results in love addicts neglecting to care for themselves in a variety of ways, in essence abandoning important aspects of their lives and well-being to stay connected to the object of their affections. Love addiction doesn’t necessarily pertain only to romantic or sexual relationships. It is possible for a person to relate as a love addict with their friends, children, sponsor, guru or religious figure, or even with a movie star, whom they have never met. A love addict’s core fantasy is the expectation that someone else can solve their problems, provide unconditional positive regard at all times, and take care of them. When this unrealistic need isn’t met, love addicts may find themselves feeling resentful, and may create conflict in their relationships with others. Some love addicts find that when not involved in a love-addicted relationship, they are able to care for themselves quite adequately. However, when they become involved, the love addict quickly finds that their self-care capacity steadily declines. From “What is Love Addiction?” By Alexandra Katehakis, MFT, CST, CSAT
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2013/05/26/what-is-love-addiction/

“My fear of abandonment is exceeded only by my terror of intimacy.” – Ethlie Ann Vare

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An Unwelcome Generational Gift

angry-familyProlonged, excessive chaos in the child’s home leads to brain and hormonal changes resulting in withdrawal due to fear and acting out. Later in life the earlier stressors show up in eating disorders, promiscuity, codependency and alcohol and drug abuse. Anger becomes an unwelcome generational gift that is passed down in families. Anger is a normal human response when our well-being is threatened. We all have anger when we feel betrayed and are unable to express the pain that we feel. Anger is made up of feelings, thoughts and physiological reactions, which includes adrenalin and cortisol release to prepare for action. While the feelings and physiological reactions cannot always be controlled, the thoughts and the behaviors can be modified and expressed in more acceptable ways. The research shows that anger is a normal response to betrayal and loss of basic trust in others. Anger also is a normal reaction to injustice, terror and feeling out of control. The innocence of the child is broken by acts of betrayal. What takes its place is fear and anger. The hurt child resolves not to trust again and creates barriers to further connection to others. All anger is not bad. Sometimes anger is a legitimate response to an injustice, which is used to bring momentum, which allows the person to make, needed changes in their life. At times anger is justified given an unfair situation where the energy that anger provides is needed to leave a bad situation. Anger can be used to protect yourself when you are terrorized. We need the energy that anger brings to get us to act and do something differently when we are stuck in bad circumstances. Other times, anger is just a bad habit to deal with the feelings of frustration because things are not going as the person wants. This article addresses the habitual type of destructive anger that harms family members and friends. From “So You Love An Angry Person” by Lynne Namka, Ed. D.
http://www.angriesout.com/family2.htm

“Anger is just anger. It isn’t good. It isn’t bad. It just is. What you do with it is what matters. It’s like anything else. You can use it to build or to destroy. You just have to make the choice.” – From “White Night” by Jim Butcher

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Sioux Falls Man Gets 30 Years for Sex Trafficking

Teen testifies in court ‘I am not your victim; I am a survivor’

Jul. 16, 2013

bildeA Sioux Falls man was sentenced to 30 years in prison Monday after being found guilty earlier this year of forcing a teenage girl into prostitution.

Emmanuel Nyuon, 34, was facing a possible life sentence after being convicted in April of sex trafficking involving a minor and conspiracy to commit sex trafficking.

U.S. District Judge Karen Schreier said that Nyuon’s case didn’t warrant the maximum sentence because his offenses and the number of victims were not equal to two previous sex trafficking cases in which she sentenced the defendants to life in prison.

But Schreier said that even though Nyuon professes that he only was helping the women, his behavior was not the kind of help they needed in their vulnerable situations.

“These women did not need help in the sex-trade business, this kind of work does not help women,” Schreier said.

The defendant’s case began last year, when administrators from the online classified website backpage.com flagged a page offering escort services with what appeared to be an underage girl.

Undercover detectives, posing as johns, set up a date with the girl at the Hampton Inn in Sioux Falls. Nyuon was caught on video dropping off the girl, who was 14 years old.

That victim testified during Nyuon’s three-day trial that he had sex with her when she was too ill to fight back and had beaten her because of suspicions that she was pregnant. She said she had also been threatened with a Taser and an air pistol she thought to be a handgun.

During Monday’s hearing, James Eirinberg, Nyuon’s lawyer, said while his client admits to driving the victim to the hotel for money, a life sentence was not warranted for aiding and abetting in the crime.

Eirinberg also asked the judge for leniency in light of Nyuon’s difficult childhood as a refugee from Sudan. Eirinberg said his client suffered from sexual assault growing up and from never having a solid father figure in his life.

Schreier said she knows Nyuon had a difficult upbringing,  but he, too, became a sex offender at a fairly young age, and had treatment and the opportunity to help himself later on in life, so his past does not excuse his trafficking actions.

Nyuon also addressed the judge during the hearing, and said he is glad that the women who testified against him are getting help, but he qualified his involvement with them as “minimal” and said the victims “are not as innocent as they act.”

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jeff Clapper argued that Nyuon’s guise of trying to help the women instead of using and abusing them is why he should be incarcerated for life.

“There is no rehabilitating a man like this,” Clapper said.

The 14-year-old victim was in the courtroom during Nyuon’s sentencing, and read a statement about her ordeal with the defendant, and her subsequent recovery.

“I am not your victim,” she said in court. “I am a survivor.”

After he was sentenced to 30 years in prison, Schreier instructed the 34-year-old to pay a $5,000 fine. If he completes his sentence, Nyuon will be subject to 10 years of probation upon release.

U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson said he was “very satisfied” with the 30-year sentence. This case, he said, is a good example of how his office is aggressively prosecuting pimps and johns to target supply and demand of human sex trafficking in the state.

“Thirty years means that this individual will not be getting out anytime soon, and when he does, he’ll be an old man who won’t be able to perpetrate the same crimes that he has now,” Johnson said. “We won’t get a life sentence in every case, but a 30-year sentence — there aren’t many crimes where a 30-year sentence is the norm.”

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Kansas City Man Charged With Sex Trafficking and Child Porn

July 17
By MARK MORRIS
The Kansas City Star

A Kansas City man sexually abused two minor girls, using both to produce child pornography and prostituting one of them, a federal grand jury alleged this week.

Michael Dye, 46, purportedly made more than $200,000 on the scheme, which included fees to watch the girls sexually perform in online webcasts and gifts of cash, vehicles, appliances and remodeling projects at Dye’s home, prosecutors alleged.And once,  Dye threatened one of his victims that he would have her and her family killed if she ever told anyone about the abuse, prosecutors alleged.The charges alleged that Dye used two children to produce child porn between June 2005 and August 2008. Dye also allegedly prostituted one of the children between June 2005 and August 2007, prosecutors said.

The grand jury returned the sealed indictment on Tuesday, and it was opened Wednesday after his initial court appearance. Prosecutors have asked that Dye be jailed without bond pending his trial because they said he is likely to flee and is a threat to his victims.

Prosecutors alleged that after an interview with authorities in late 2012, Dye began to drive past  one of his victim’s homes.

“The minor victim advised that there is no reason why Dye would be driving by their home with that frequency unless it was to keep an eye on them and see whether they were meeting any more with law enforcement,” the detention motion stated.

Officials also alleged that Dye was a danger to himself, noting that Dye attempted suicide after being extensively questioned  four years ago.

“Dye has made numerous statements to the minor victims that rather than spend a lengthy time in jail he would instead commit suicide,” the detention motion stated.

Dye is charged with two counts of producing child pornography, two counts of selling child pornography and one count each of child sex trafficking and grooming a child to participate in child pornography.

If convicted on all counts, he faces a minimum of 15 years in prison and could be sentenced up to life.

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Federal Agents Arrest 255 Suspected Online Predators of Children

5:25 AM, Jul 16, 2013

ATLANTA — Federal agents announced Monday they arrested 255 people — three of them in the Atlanta area, and three of them elsewhere in Georgia — suspected of victimizing at least 61 children online.

The suspects were arrested in June during a nationwide crackdown against the exploitation of children on the Internet.

“There’s a tremendous amount of it out there,” said Brock Nicholson in Atlanta, one of the top investigators in charge of the operation, who said agents were “finding the worst of the worst.”

Nicholson is Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Georgia and the Carolinas. His agents joined other agents across the country in the operation, called “Operation iGuardian.”

“We rescued 61 victims of abuse, which is our main focus,” Nicholson said.

Agents who conducted the sweep said one of the ways predators lured children is through “sextortion.”

“Sextortion is one of the tools,” Nicholson said, “where basically an individual will, through the Internet, meet children at various websites, whether it be through a video game website,” or social media sites. “They’re going to where the kids are,” he said, and they befriend the kids.  “And they get the child comfortable with them… convince the child to do something they know that’s going to seem wrong, then threaten the child… then this sextortion thing comes in, ‘Hey look,’ you know, ‘I’ll tell your parents you’re looking at this unless you do A, B, C,'” and the predators ultimately make their demands, such as demanding that the children take sexually-explicit photos of themselves, or demanding that the children meet them. The children comply because they are too frightened to say no.

“You have to remember, they’re going after a very young mind,” Nicholson said, and the predators “are very skilled at getting children to do things that are absolutely heinous.”

Nicholson said Homeland Security Investigators are launching “an aggressive outreach program, with schools and parents’ groups, and anyone that will listen,” an education campaign that will begin in about a month; they will take every opportunity to meet parents to underscore the urgency of keeping their children out of harm’s way online.

One way of protecting them:  monitoring their children’s Internet use constantly. A tall order, but possible, he said.

“It’s so important that parents not worry about their child feeling like [the parents are] overdoing it with checking on them. You can’t overdo it enough, you need to not only see what your child is doing on the Internet, you need to teach them what to look for, and warn them that there are very bad individuals. I have two daughters, and trust me, I have had that conversation with them ad infinitum — ‘It’s not that I don’t trust you, I don’t trust the other folks that are out on the Internet.'”

The charges against the suspects are felonies, and “some sentences even go up to life,” if convicted, Nicholson said. Investigators continue to work the cases they developed in June. “we’ll follow up with the folks that we’ve arrested and see if we can determine if there are any more victims. We’ll certainly use every bit of energy we have to see if there are other folks that the guys were working with, or exchanging with. But we do this every day,” not just during special sweeps like the one in June.

“We get a great feeling of accomplishment when we can get one of these people off the street.”