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Police find child porn tapes

A sex offender made the tapes in the '70s and kept them under his bed, investigators say.

By JACOB H. FRIES AND JONATHAN ABEL
Published April 17, 2007

CLEARWATER - A registered sex offender has been arrested and charged with possessing tapes of child pornography he created in the 1970s, police said Monday.

Investigators said they had not yet been able to examine all five tapes found at Douglas Faller's home or his computer.

They were consulting other local police departments to determine whether the children depicted in the tapes were previously identified when Faller was arrested on similar charges in 1980.

"There are victims out there who may be unaware that they are victims," Detective Mike Folk said. "We're just at the beginning stages. ... It could take months before we can identify the children."

Officers went to Faller's mobile home at 2633 Fujiama Drive, off U.S. 19, about 10 a.m. Sunday after receiving a report of two men fighting, police said. One of the men, John Gilbert, 45, of Pinellas Park told officers that Faller, 77, the man with whom he was scuffling, had child pornography in his home.

Faller let officers inside and they found the tapes under his bed, each with handwritten titles such as "In Dangerous Company" and "Off the Wall," police said. The tapes show Faller assaulting dozens of children, many of whom appear to be sleeping or perhaps drugged, police said.

The images on the videos that Faller is charged with having are similar in some respects to photographs that he was charged with making more than a quarter-century ago. He told police Sunday they depict the same children.

Faller was arrested in 1980 by Pinellas Park police on two counts of lewd and lascivious behavior, records show.

Police charged then that Faller took more than 300 photographs of about 20 neighborhood children, all but one of them girls, during an eight-year period.

One of the photos was of a girl about 4 years old, and police said the rest were of children between 6 and 16, police said. Most were shown sleeping partly or completely unclothed, and several photos showed naked children in poses, being touched.

After his arrest in 1980, his neighbors said Faller was the "Pied Piper" of the neighborhood, with scores of children always visiting his house because he had a swimming pool and a trampoline. He was also known to take local children in a camper to Disney World.

Faller pleaded no contest, according to court records. A formal finding of guilt was withheld and he was sentenced initially to seven years of probation. In 1984, he was sentenced to two years of community control on a charge that he violated his probation.

Faller was arrested again on a similar charge in 1994. Court records show that authorities issued a warrant for his arrest on a charge of fondling a child younger than 16 in 1989, and that Faller was arrested in 1994.

Faller pleaded guilty to that charge and was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment, with five years of the incarceration being suspended followed by two years of community control. He also was ordered not to have any contact with children younger than 12 and to attend sex offender counseling.

On Monday, Faller was being held at the Pinellas County Jail on seven counts of possessing materials that show the sexual performance of a child. His bail was set at $70,000.

"In my opinion, he has no remorse for the crimes he's committed or the permanent harm to the scores of kids he's molested," Folk said.

Faller's neighbors complained to the park's management when they found out a sex offender was living in their midst. They said Faller put up a For Sale sign soon after they started complaining, but he never left.

"We weren't happy about it," said Dode Zisler, who lives down the street, "but there was nothing we could do."

Times staff researchers Cathy Wos and Mary Mellstrom contributed to this report.

[Last modified April 16, 2007, 22:33:39]