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2 charged with sexual exploitation of Helena boy

Posted: Dec 22, 2010 11:00 PM by Marnee Banks (Helena)
Updated: Dec 22, 2010 11:12 PM


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Two men have been arrested and charged with sexually exploiting a 10-year old Helena boy.

Anthony Steven Rodriguez of Georgia and Robert Shane Wilkins of Alabama are in custody for sending child pornography to the boy.

On December 6th, the boy's mother reported suspicious internet activity to the Helena Police Department.

The FBI's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force investigated the case and found the screen name "FunandFreaky7" on the boy's YouTube account.

The investigator discovered that the screen name "FunandFreaky7" belonged to Rodriguez and Wilkins, who were posing as a pre-teen girl.

The two suspects asked the Helena boy to send them pictures of himself engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The boy complied.

"FunandFreaky7" then sent videos to the Helena boy of a pre-teen girl with her pants off, exposing her vagina.

A Helena investigator recently went to Alabama and arrested Wilkins, while the FBI arrested Rodriguez.

According to Helena Police Chief Troy McGee, Rodriguez is a registered sex offender and Wilkins has no criminal history. Wilkins was a former employee at a daycare in Hoover, Alabama.

McGee says crimes like this happen far too often. He says his team here in Helena has caught and arrested state and federal employees and even an employee out at Fort Harrison for internet crimes against children.

He says it isn't hard to catch internet criminals; the difficulty is that there are so many cases it is hard to get to them all.

"There is a lot more investigation to go on. It appears there may be, possibly more victims out there. We are looking into that. There may be other investigator task forces around the country that may be working on cases that started from this particular case," McGee said.

The two men are in custody in their respective states and will be extradited to Montana to face charges in federal court.

Click here to read more about this developing story at CBS42.com, including court documents.

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