I MEET ROGER YOUNG

It is not uncommon for traffickers to beat, rape, or torture their victims. Some traffickers also use drugs and alcohol to control them.

---Department of Justice, Child Exploitation and Obscenity (CEOS), Child Sex Trafficking

I began writing my book, ABDUCTED: My Struggle to Remember, in 2017 after I discovered I could research my kidnapping on the internet. I found several interviews with retired FBI special agent, Roger T. Young, on Google, who talked about his work off and on as an undercover agent in the area of child pornography, prostitution and obscenity, from 1977 until his retirement in 2001.

Roger’s father, Homer Young, was an FBI agent from 1950 until 1972. He worked in the Los Angeles office beginning in 1955. His job was to find and convict pornographers. In 1968, FBI headquarters designated him as the national coordinator for all pornography cases nationwide.

Because I felt Roger would be the perfect person to talk to, I wrote him a letter at the University of Nevada, in Reno, in May of 2017, where he taught an online class. To my surprise, he answered. We made arrangement to meet in Reno on June 21, 2017, the date of my 78^th birthday.

After four days of driving, I arrived for our interview with a list of questions and with his permission, recorded our conversation. Later, I transcribed our talk and sent it to him for approval. 

During his time in the FBI, Roger worked on three national obscenity cases, code named: MIPORN, (An investigation involving 54 major pornographers,) BLUE DARCY, (Case against Reuben Sturman, who ran a massive pornographic syndicate,) and WOODWORM, (targeting major pornographers in the San Fernando Valley, just north of Los Angeles, California.) 

I learned many things from Roger. He was an enormous help because he validated what I had experienced during my abduction.

Here are some things it’s important to understand about child pornography.

·         Pornographers rented space for filming on Olvera Street in Los Angeles.

·         Porn groups often rented houses or estates for filming.

·        Children’s photographs were published in magazines, and pictures were sold in sets to pedophiles and other types of child molesters.

·        Child sex offenders show pornographic photographs, movies, and live sex acts to children to desensitize them, and demonstrate that this kind of behavior is okay. 

·         Children were taught how to perform for pornographic films.

·         Children were filmed in sexual situations with animals.

I also learned that a child’s name would have been removed from the permanent record in pornography cases, and I would need the name of the perpetrator to find a record of the trial. To complicate matters, some pornographers were involved in Satanic Cults and used aliases.

Laws were different when I was abducted and they have been slow to change. There were no federal laws that differentiated child pornography from adult pornography. If an adult had sex with a child, the law had to prove the child had crossed state lines. Also, it wasn't enough for a person to own pornographic videos. It had to be proved that the perpetrator intended to sell them for profit.

I had had several dreams that mentioned a Frenchman. I asked Roger if he knew of such a person in the pornography business in the 1940s. He told me about a pornographer known as the "The Dirty Frenchman." I decided to investigate him and typed “Dirty Frenchman” into Google. Within seconds I received a forceful message calling me disgusting names and accusing me of being a pornographer. As my mind processed this threatening message, another message popped up offering to sell me porn. I quickly closed my computer. This encounter, however, discouraged me from further research into this subject area on the internet. 

After his retirement, Roger started his own consulting business. He worked with the National Law Center for Children and Families, Morality and Media, Inc., and he ran and coordinated an obscenity hotline, which is no longer in operation.

When asked how he managed to stay sane while working in the world of child exploitation, he said he had to keep a sense of humor, have outside hobbies, and exercise. He left work behind and went home and enjoyed his family. Roger is religious. "It helps to have a spiritual foundation. And work is what you do, not who are." 

To this day, I keep in touch with Roger. He reads my blogs, answers my questions, encourages me, and has been an all-around supporter of my project. It is great to have him in my life.

Me at age eight.

Onward and upward