A Level 2 sex offender charged with taking pornographic snapshots of a 6-year-old girl and sharing them online never told the child’s mother about his criminal history, according to the federal investigators — and the mom had no quick and easy way of finding out.
George Shipps, 31, of Chelsea is one of about 6,000 moderate-risk sex criminals who enjoy a state-sanctioned layer of identity protection. Unlike high-risk Level 3 offenders, whose names and addresses are available instantly online, Level 2 offenders’ whereabouts are available only through a formal written request to the state Sex Offenders Registry Board or the local police station where the cons register.
http://liarcatchers.com/pedophile_tracking.html
The girl’s mother “was unaware of his status as a sex offender,” said FBI Special Agent Christopher Hughes, who investigated the case and testified yesterday at a hearing to show authorities had probable cause when they arrested Shipps last week.
“He indicated to her he had some minor brushes with the law,” such as driving with bad license plates, Hughes said.
What Shipps didn’t reveal, according to the feds, was his prior Middlesex County conviction for child-porn possession and enticing a minor. Shipps was on probation when FBI agents searched his home Feb. 19 and charged him with production of child pornography, prosecutors said in court yesterday.
The girl’s mother declined to comment yesterday. The Herald is withholding her relationship to Shipps to protect her daughter’s identity.
In a heartbreaking exchange recounted in court, Hughes said the little girl, while speaking to investigators, identified herself in the pictures and “asked the question if her mother would know” they’d been taken. She failed to identify Shipps as the person who took the photographs, he said, and when investigators asked her how he got them, she replied: “He must have made them up.” Such denial is common among young victims, he said.
Investigators say they came across Shipps while probing an international trail of child-porn trading on the Internet.
