A Manhattan substitute teacher pled not guilty today on felony child pornography charges. 32-year-old Joshua Ruiz confessed to possessing child pornography on his computer, and in an online chat found by authorities, "spoke about sexually abusing his own 3-year-old nephew," the Daily News reports. In other chat logs Ruiz spoke with a father of a 3-month-old girl who had sex with her, and told him "I would love to be a part of it, even, at least, if you could let me just watch." Ruiz has been released on $15,000 bail, and told investigators that "I have never touched a child sexually in any way."
The Manhattan DA's office also announced the results of a massive child pornography probe today, outing 26 people who "traded images of child sexual assault" like people would trade "baseball cards." The list of the accused includes a Harvard-educated lawyer, a dishwasher, an employee at a children's shoe store a building superintendent. Included in the cache of images seized by authorities are pictures of "a 3-year-old getting raped in a bathtub and a 5-year-old forced to perform oral sex." Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder, and a Louisiana man recently underwent surgical castration to earn parole.
