Thread: Tucson: A potential tourist stop for sexual predators?

http://wildcat.arizona.edu/papers/98/171/03_2.html

Tucson: A potential tourist stop for sexual predators?



Kara Karlson
columnist


By Kara Karlson
Arizona Daily Wildcat
September 6, 2005
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Travel to gorgeous Tucson for palm trees, lovely weather, Janet Napolitano's face splashed over pro-tourism billboards and easy access to Mexican child sex slaves.

Recently there has been a campaign to encourage tourism to the Grand Canyon State, but the kind of tourism recently brought here by the likes of Manfred Knittel, a German national, and Sebastien Sarraute, a French national, was probably not the kind the governor had in mind.

When Knittel was apprehended in Tucson, the arresting officers found what you would expect for a 54-year-old pervert planning the ultimate fantasy getaway - condoms and Viagra.

However, instead of chocolates and roses, or just a lot of cash to satisfy the tastes of willing adult prostitutes, Knittel had also brought a stuffed animal, candy and a camera to record his delightful "sight-seeing" adventures.

Upon interrogation, Knittel told authorities that after bringing $875 to ensure he had a pool of girls aged 6 to 10 to choose from and fantasizing via e-mail with undercover ice officers about the exact details of his "purchase," he wasn't actually going to have sex with the minors. Yeah, right.

No one, not even 54-year-old German perverts, will shell out over $875 in cash, just to go to Mexico and fantasize about acts they can and did fantasize about at home for free.

Of course, we grow these types at home, too. Anthony Price Lowenstein of Greenwich, Conn., was sentenced in Tucson in April to 63 months for attempting to travel to Mexico through Tucson for child sex slaves and for possessing child pornography on his computer back home.

While there has been a lot of political focus on the border, the issue of child exploitation along the border is still largely unaddressed.

Knittel and Sarraute were both sentenced to just 51 months - a little over four years - in prison. Lowenstein received an added year on his sentence for possessing child pornography.

As a community of Arizona's and America's future, we should all be outraged that these men should receive only a little over four years for a crime that so traumatizes its victims.

To put this punishment in perspective, if Knittel or Sarraute had his eyes on a particular girl, and this girl was 6 when the criminal was imprisoned, she would be 10 when he got out, if he served his full sentence.

Even with a four-month incarceration, this girl would still be in the predator's preferred age-range when he is released. And Knittel's or Sarraute's incarceration, which was meant to protect the child, could still ultimately fail her.

In the upcoming months, the Tucson community and newly registered voters on the UA campus will be inundated with politicians fighting for votes. The hottest political issue in the state, and rapidly becoming one of the hottest issues in the country, is illegal activity around the Arizona-Mexico border.

Politicians on both sides, from Rep. Raul Grijalva's walk in an illegal immigrant's footsteps, to congressional-hopeful Randy Graf's hard-line stance against illegal immigration, focus on the very important problem of illegal immigration into the United States.

However, as the voting population, we cannot let them forget about the reverse flow.

It is heartbreaking to think of pedophiles using my state, my country, as a geographic accomplice in their brutalization of little girls.

As UA students, we must demand a more secure border so that people from other countries and states cannot use us as an easy access point to Mexico, where young children will be more accessible.

So, what can be done by a single, lowly college student? The first task is to write. Put this issue on the radar and make it a problem for those currently in power or for those aspiring to power.

The politicians know interstate transit to secure sex with children is happening. Maybe they think you don't know. Or maybe they think you don't care.

Show them you do by writing, calling and eventually by voting. It only takes one person dedicated to a cause to change this country, and a case in point is the Jessica Lunsford Act.

Our state officials should launch a campaign against people trying to use this state as an easy access point to children. We should let pedophiles know that they are being watched by federal agents, and that Arizona and U.S. citizens won't stand by and let injustice occur within our borders or anywhere else.

Whoever wins the race for the City Council, congressional, gubernatorial and senatorial seats must not be allowed to forget about the other border issue.

The punishment does not fit the crime. These perverts can scar these children for life and only get a few years. Another reason for that Border Wall and NO FTAA.