Lt. Josh Moulin: Online Games and Child Exploitation

Lt. Josh Moulin

Lieutenant Josh Moulin supervises the Central Point Police Department’s Technical Services Bureau and is the Commander of the Southern Oregon High-Tech Crimes Task Force. He is one of approximately 470 Certified Forensic Computer Examiner’s worldwide and has been trained by a variety of organizations in digital evidence forensics. Lt. Moulin has also been qualified as an expert witness in the area of computer forensics and frequently teaches law enforcement, prosecutors, and university students about digital evidence.

Beginning his public safety career in 1993, Josh started in the Fire/EMS field working an assortment of assignments including fire suppression, fire prevention, transport ambulance, and supervision. After eight years Josh left the fire service with the rank of Lieutenant and began his law enforcement career. As a Police Officer Josh has had the opportunity to work as a patrol officer, field training officer, officer in charge, arson investigator, detective, and sergeant.

For further information about the Central Point Police Department please visit www.cp-pd.com, and for the Southern Oregon High-Tech Crimes Task Force visit www.hightechcops.com. To reach Sgt. Moulin you can e-mail him at joshm@hightechcops.com.

Online Games and Child Exploitation
From the Case Files of the Southern Oregon High-Tech Crimes Task Force

On Sunday February 24th 2008 I received a phone call at home from an Oregon State Police Detective asking for my assistance with a person they just arrested. The Detective told me that a man was just stopped on Interstate 5 by State Troopers who was a suspect in a kidnapping from California. The suspect had with him some computer equipment and cell phones and the State Police wanted some help with seizing the digital evidence.

I left home and met the State Police Detective at his office. In custody was a male adult named David Anthony Faboo and in protective custody was a 16-year-old female from California. I assisted the State Police by taking possession of all the digital evidence in a forensically sound manner. The Detective briefed me on the case and explained that Faboo was suspected of traveling down to Wheatland California and picking up the 16 year old from her home and brining her back up to Oregon.

The female victim’s parents realized their daughter was missing and called the local police department. Through the course of the Wheatland Police Department’s investigation they began to track the location of the victim girl’s cell phone. During the cell phone tracking it was found her phone was traveling northbound on Interstate 5 near Grants Pass Oregon and the Oregon State Police located the vehicle and stopped it.

Since this case involved the suspect traveling over state lines the Federal Bureau of Investigation from the Sacramento Field Office became the lead agency. During the next several weeks after Faboo’s arrest I sifted through all of the digital evidence and sent a report to the FBI of the findings. The FBI, Wheatland
Police, the Oregon State Police and the Southern Oregon High-Tech Crimes Task Force conducted an extensive investigation. It is alleged that Faboo met the teen girl through the website MySpace.com and through the online game World of Warcraft.

Faboo’s truck had a makeshift bed built by plywood in the back along with knives, rope, condoms, and sex toys (all details made public in this case). It is unknown what Faboo’s true intentions were, but on April 4th 2008 David Anthony Faboo was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on two counts of Transporting a Minor Across State Lines for Purposes of Criminal Sexual Activity. Faboo remains in custody in Sacramento today.

Nearly every electronic gaming system sold on the market today has the ability to be connected to the Internet. Having a game system connected to the Internet allows users to download new games and content, do system upgrades, and to play games against people all over the world. In addition to game systems such as the Wii, Nintendo DS, Xbox and Playstation there are many games for computers to be played on the Internet as well.

Most games allow for online communication to occur between players ranging from typed messages to headsets in which the players talk to each other. Being able to communicate with a fellow teammates or to an online enemy can make a game more realistic and help people strategize. It can also introduce children to people who are playing these games for a far more sinister reason, to find their next victim.

Sexual predators will disguise themselves as teenagers playing these games and begin to create online relationships with children. Over time, these sexual predators will begin asking questions that seem harmless to children and teenagers such as the school they attend, their after school schedule, sports activities, what their parents do for work, etc. Coming from “another kid” a child may not see the harm in answering the questions. The reality is that they just may have provided that information to an online sexual predator.

After establishing a rapport with a child, these sexual predators will get them distracted by playing an intense online game and then ask them more specific and personal questions. They know exactly what they are doing and how to get the information they are looking for. If they don’t get it from one child, they’ll quickly move onto the next.

In addition to sexual predators, these online gamming areas can expose children to explicit language and other content that may not be suitable for younger children. It is important that parents realize this potential exists and that kids and teens know who to go to when something happens on the Internet or an online game that makes them feel uncomfortable.

David Faboo is looking at a maximum penalty for his charges of life in prison with a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years. He should be considered innocent unless and until he is proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

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7 replies
  1. Sgt. Moulin
    Sgt. Moulin says:

    Fyyreflyy – Thanks for the message and you are very welcome! The Sacramento office of the FBI is investigating this case and the suspect was indicted by a Federal Grand Jury on April 4th 2008. I don’t have any more specific information or a better contact than that unfortunately.

  2. Fyyreflyy
    Fyyreflyy says:

    1st I’d like to say THANK YOU!! to you and eveyone else that has worked so hard on my daughter’s case.

    She resides with her father & even though we share joint legal custody I have been kept completly in the dark about the events that occurred, I know nothing more than the general public, I’ve been searching for a year now on any information I can get as to who to contact for information on this case, could you please direct me to who to contact, a phone number, address, etc. so that I can get the facts of what happened, & hopefully regain some contact with my daughter. Thank You

  3. Sgt. Moulin
    Sgt. Moulin says:

    Terry, I can give you some ideas about what we look for. How we find forensic evidence on computers is a perfect topic for a whole new blog!

    In a case such as this we really go through everything to see what the suspect has been up to. For example I will look through e-mails, Internet history, downloaded files, log files showing recent activity, images, videos, and more. Generally as a computer is examined the forensic examiner gets more information such as usernames, passwords, and preferences of the computer user which can assist in creating new keyword searches to look for additional evidence.

    A typical exam of a computer such as this can take up to 40 hours of analysis, not including the imaging of the hard drive and processing the case with a software application like FTK or Encase.

    Let me know if you have any other questions.

    Sgt. Josh Moulin

  4. Earth2Mary
    Earth2Mary says:

    I used to hang out at a virtual pet site and met all kinds of people, especially one person who nearly admitted to being an adult male, and gave inconsistent pictures of “herself” (tall, short, blonde, brunette). Eventually, I realized the gravity of the situation and left that scene.

    Thank you for protecting all the kids and teens who may just be looking for game sites and friends. Some times we’re a lot dumber than we think 🙂 I hope you catch a lot more of those losers and put them behind bars.

    God bless,
    Mary

  5. Kendra
    Kendra says:

    Scum, scum, scum! My daughters are 7,9, and 11. We’ve had several discussions on Internet safety. Right now, they understand. I can only hope they choose to pay attention to my warnings as they enter those bull headed teen years.

    Funny, what helped them understand that people lie online, was the words to the Brad Paisley song about his online alter ego.

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