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Prosecutor arrested in Internet sex case
A TV station's reporting on pedophiles using Web cams leads to the arrest.
©Associated Press
January 22, 2003
WEST PALM BEACH -- A highly respected prosecutor was taken out of a courtroom during a trial Tuesday and arrested on charges that he stripped and masturbated in front of a Web cam for someone he believed to be a 13-year-old girl.
Assistant State Attorney Ira Karmelin was charged with two felonies: soliciting a minor for sex via the Internet and transmitting harmful materials to a minor via the Internet, said Capt. Bernie Presha of the Orange County Sheriff's Office in Orlando.
Karmelin was released on $250,000 bail. Scott Richardson, Karmelin's attorney, said he and his client declined to comment.
Karmelin, 38, a top prosecutor in Palm Beach County, has been in the State Attorney's Office more than 10 years. The charges came after Orlando station WFTV worked on a story about pedophiles using Web cams. The station had a young-looking undercover producer pose as a 13-year-old girl. Authorities said Karmelin approached the producer in a chat room using a screen name, Mickeynut24.
The two then used their Web cams, tiny cameras hooked up to the computer that can transfer images of the user. The station later feared that Karmelin was also chatting with an actual young user and contacted the Orange County Sheriff's Office.
Presha said there were four online encounters, two of them observed by detectives.
Sheriff's investigators subpoenaed AOL to get the identity behind the user name. Using the name, they matched a driver's license photo with the online image WFTV had taped, Presha said. Karmelin's home was searched and his computer seized.
Karmelin has been suspended without pay pending the outcome of charges, according to the State Attorney's Office.
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