On March 26, 2010, Big 3 News received an article through the “Submit News” feature on our website. The content, entitled, “A Great American Distraction – Protect Our Children,” was submitted by a viewer from our live broadcasts who occasionally participated in our chat room and on Skype calls by the handle of “Jazzyxxx”. This viewer had inquired about becoming a contributor to the site and offered to provide relevant material.
Big 3 News subsequently published the content without verifying the authorship. We assumed, based on previous conversations and email correspondence with “Jazzyxxx”, that the content was his; we had no reason to question the authorship of the material.
In less than twelve hours of publishing the content, an allegation was made that the article had been plagiarized, verbatim. We immediately contacted our contributor, as well as the alleged original author of the content.
Some of our viewers may have noticed that the content was pulled down after we sent it out to our subscribers and our social networks. Below is the account of the events as they transpired, leading up to and including our decision to withdraw the material.
Additionally, we are including relevant information which reveals the obvious bias displayed by “Jazzyxxx” as it relates to this specific topic of protecting our children.
Big 3 News sincerely apologizes to our loyal readers for allowing content to be published where the original source was questioned and where, ultimately, it was revealed the contributor had a personal agenda in re-publishing the work.
A former Big 3 News Contributor engaged in plagiarism in order to promote a radical registered sex offender (RSO) agenda.
Walter Howard, 52, of Lowell, Massachusetts submitted an article to Big 3 News which presented a commentary on the plight of individuals labeled as sexual predators. No third party attribution was provided and the article appeared to be written by Howard.
The article examined widely repeated claims about the threat posed by sex offenders and a trend by the media and legislators to “panic over sexual predators.”
Consistent with our commitment to present diverse views on a range of political, social and religious topics, the content was published on the Big 3 News website on Saturday, April 10, 2010 with the headline, “Predator panic: Majority of crimes against kids committed by family, clergy, friends, not predators.”
A website reader first indicated the article may have been written by someone other than Howard.
“We immediately contacted Mr. Howard via Skype to inquire about the authorship of the piece he had submitted,” Big 3 News Editor Rusty Ray said on Sunday. “We provided Mr. Howard with a link to another website which contained the identical content, verbatim, written by another author. Mr. Howard maintained that he had written the piece sometime in 2000 or 2001, a copy of which was in the Library of Congress.”
Howard indicated he would provide documentation that he was the author by visiting the Library of Congress the following day, Sunday.
The Library of Congress, as well as most government office buildings, is closed on Sunday.
Big 3 News contacted the suspected author of the piece, Ben Radford, who confirmed that it was his material.
“This material is original content written by me,” Bradford said. “and published in adapted form in Skeptical Inquirer magazine a few years ago.”
Upon further investigation, Big 3 News has learned through the Lowell Police Department and the Massachusetts Executive Office of Public Safety that Howard is a Level-3 Sex Offender who was convicted on four (4) counts of assault of a child with intent to commit rape, three (3) counts of indecent assault and battery on a person aged 14 or older, and three (3) counts of rape and abuse of a child on November 25, 1992.
Howard served eight years of a 15 year prison sentence for the crimes he committed.
“While Big 3 News has no evidence that Mr. Howard committed or engaged in any unlawful sexual activity while participating in our live shows and chat room on blogTV, he did violate the trust of our readers by engaging in plagiarism and copyright violation, and failing to disclose his Registered Sex Offender status. Our readers deserved to know that a person writing a piece of such a sensitive nature had a vested interest in persuading them to be sympathetic to his point of view,” Ray said.
The Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board has determined that Howard is “at a high risk to re-offend and that the degree of dangerousness posed to the public is such that a substantial public safety interest is served by active community notification.”
Howard, who operates a website called the National Coalition for Social & Political Reform, allegedly maintains several internet aliases, including “Jazzyxxx”, “Jazz”, “Soundman51″, “TMaximus95″, and “Slowhandluke”, among others, according to an independent investigation by Big 3 News, and information obtained off the website Wikisposure.
According to their website, The Wikisposure Project is a clearinghouse for profiles of individuals in the pedophile and RSO activist community. They work closely with law enforcement to maintain identities and help build cases for possible legal proceedings.
In one Wikisposure posting attributed to Howard, he writes, “my crimes involved the manipulation and bribery of several teenage boys (age 14 to 16 years old) to allow me to have sexual relations with them. My crimes were not physically violent. That is, I didn’t force anyone into anything, but I did use money and gifts to gain their cooperation…My solicitation of teen victims were nothing more than a reflection of the methods used by so many men who molested me as a child. I embraced their grooming tactics as a romantic process, and then used that process on the teen boys I had molested.”
In another excerpt, the group documents Howard’s writing using the name of T Maximus, “It’s amazing to me how many cool stories I’ve read about the things boy lovers do with their young friend. It’s not all about sex. I’m finding that many BL’s (boy lovers) hold their responsibility to a YF (young friend) with a great conviction.”
On at least one occasion, Howard was witnessed visiting the shows of — and casually interacting with — minor broadcasters on the social website blogTV. As a result, the management of the website was contacted with concerns about Howard’s Level 3 Sex Offender status and easy access to minors on the site. His account has since been deactivated.Big 3 News confronted Howard with allegations that he had been observed in the minor’s chat rooms with one or two other account users.
“Ask any of the young people I chat with, I tell them about me,” Howard said. “Also, some of those rooms I was invited into…and secondly, those individuals send me friend requests. All of my conduct on BlogTV and the web in general, has remained professional, and not a smidgen of sexual nature.”
In the About Me section of “Soundman51′s” YouTube channel, one of the internet handles used by Howard, he acknowledges being a former sex offender.
“Consensual sexual misconduct with a minor is indeed against the law,” Soundman51 writes, “but it’s not the crime of the century.”
“I love young people, but given my past , it’s best that they have only professional contact with me,” Soundman51 says. “The world is full of people with hidden agendas and bad intentions. I’m not one of them.”
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Sorry, Rusty. I just thought someone needed to know. I am not sure the way I went about reporting was a good choice, but I am proud of you for how you responded to it.
You took it further by not only verifying the sources of the original material, but by investigating the purported author who had a personal agenda.
Godspeed.
NO they shoud not be on blogtv/ustream/stickam facebook any of thos type of sites at all! sorry for typos its 12 am here been up for 2 days
hi Rusty,
Thanks for bringing this to light, I know you try to keep Big3News at the top of internet news programing. His deception shows the side he works from. Keep on fighting the good fight.
Standingstones {SEAN}
I am sure that alot of us feel differently about this topic, but unless anyone of you have actually been involved in this issue you really never know what to think. My feeling is that unless you are of age then there is no way you should have access to any public chat sites because of the ill thinking people in this world, and it is a real shame that there is no safe place left in this world for any of us to feel like we belong without someone having an "agenda"! Baby sitting by internet has become the parents easiest way to ignore the young today, either that or the perscribed medication fix so many use today. I can hear my grandparents in my head saying, lordy sakes what are you thinking?
Rusty great job on this article, and quite honestly I think you were too easy on him.
Rusty,
I am so pleased you found the truth and shared it with everyone. This man by his charges is a danger to many people. By sharing this, you may have very well prevented someone harm.
Today, we need to be so careful when we are speaking to people online , or anywhere for that matter. Sadly we live in a society today that allows people like this to have freedom. I feel they need to be barricaded into a place living with others like themselves.. so they can no longer hurt children..
I commend you for making this public. This is one reason I am so pleased to be part of the Big3News Family. Keep up the good work, and your honesty.. That alone makes you a success. God Bless
Rusty I'm quite surprised. One day you were talking about the promise of your new contributor and how he had posted a new story. Then the very next day you find out these disturbing things. How do you do it so fast? You literally found this all out in less than twenty four hours. I am simply amazed Rusty, I don't know how you do it. Its true dedication I don't see from most journalist that keeps me in your show.
Thank you for sharing this information – I too think you've probably saved someone from harm by shedding light on this situation!
While Mr. Howard was wrong for plagerizing, why did you have to rely on a site like Wikisposure, a site known for lies, slander, and maintained by people who harass and threaten people online? The fact is the reporter was contacted by the Wikisposure crowd. They have made false allegations and have attacked many people who are NOT pedophiles. And what does Mr. Howard's past have to do with an article on plagerism? It seems a bit spiteful in my opinion. There is nothing illegal about former offenders speaking out against well-intentioned but ill-conceived laws. In the interest of fairness, how about a piece on the controversy surrounding Wikisposure? Check out http://corrupted-justice.com/ to learn more on Wikisposure.
"The fact is the reporter was contacted by the Wikisposure crowd. They have made false allegations and have attacked many people who are NOT pedophiles."
What evidence to you have to support your accusation that our news organization was contacted by Wikisposure?
Are you specifically challenging the accuracy of Mr. Howard's information on Wikisposure, and if so, have you contacted them about correcting it?
The FACT is, no one from Wikisposure contacted this reporter.
Everything we presented in this article was based on first-hand research & investigation. The only person that contacted Big 3 News was the user named Headlines (see subsequent post above), informing us the content was plagiarized. And that communication was limited to a post on Mr Howard's original article.
We did not take Headline's word for it. We researched it and contacted both the plagiarizer, Mr Howard, and the original author, Mr. Radford. This article clearly states that.
If you Google Mr. Howard's name, I believe you will easily find the references to the Wikisposure website, as well as other material.
No one has disputed the specific content about Mr. Howard that was posted on the Wikisposure site, from which we pulled information for this story (not even Mr. Howard himself). If someone challenges the accuracy of it, we will issue a correction to this story. If Mr. Howard's views on sex with "consenting" minors is not correct as stated in our article, we will correct that.
During this entire experience, we have reached out to a number of organizations for further information, including The Wikisposure Project and the Lowell Police Department.
Several readers have asked us about the terms of Mr. Howard's release back into the community as a Class 3 Sex Offender, and whether he's permitted to interact with minors at all (in the real world and the online world such as places like blogTV, where there have been many issues with and news stories of people attempting to victimize minors).
We are awaiting a reply to that inquiry.
Again, we stated clearly in the article that we had no proof of Mr. Howard engaging in unlawful sexual activity. We do have proof of him interacting with minor broadcasters, both personal knowledge and a chat log with his own admission, which he freely confesses on his YouTube channel is a concern for him.
Finally, your opinion that this post seems "spiteful" is ill-formed. The viewers who were on our live broadcast Sunday night, as well as several contributors we spoke with off air, understood the importance of keeping our discussion focused on two issues: 1) the plagiarism 2) the violation of trust.
The relevance of Mr. Howard's past was important to include for the reasons I stated in the article. Numerous times Mr. Howard called in on our live broadcasts to turn the attention off specific news stories about pedophile priests and sex offenders, to issues related to what is clearly now his radical sex offender agenda. From our research, his view of "reforming" the political and social system is apparently to get rid of all sex offender laws, including registering of sex offenders, monitoring and other laws. He has not disputed that or stated otherwise.
I repeatedly stated the law penalizes anyone who uses public information about Mr. Howard for harassment purposes. I have been very clear that this article was in no way an effort to harass Mr. Howard, and I continue to take that position. The article was born out of a responsibility and obligation to our viewers to factually document what took place and Mr. Howard's motivations behind it.
Thanks for your comments and feel free to contact me if you have additional questions or concerns.
Rusty Ray
You ask me if I have evidence that Wikisposure contacted you, instead you should prove that you were not contacted by them. I have plenty of evidence on the activities of that group for years. I know many individuals they had targeted over the years, harassing families of registrants, contacting local law enforcement and making false claims, the 3 am phone calls, the anonymous emails. Please don't insult my intelligence by telling me I don't know what I'm talking about. But just to be fair, I'll assume you "just happened upon Wikisposure" like you claim. At the least, accepting an independently run site like that and blindly accepting it as fact is poor journalism, unless your intent was writing for the National Enquirer or similar gossip rag. You should verify your facts before quoting a site like Wikisposure, a site currently being sued for defamation of character and harassment. Below is a part of that suit, which was feature on ABC 20/20.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCeEMVMtrL8&fe…
Big 3 News has two court documents in our possession from the State of Massachusetts that confirms Mr. Howard's "victim" mentality and frivolous civil rights complaints.
We also received an email from Mr. Howard with regard to this article that, if presented to the proper local or federal authorities, would undoubtedly be investigated as harassment.
In addition, there are numerous audio files containing Mr. Howard's own words about "kids need to learn how to love, they need to be taught how to love, they need to experiment and see what they like," especially when it is a 34 yr old man, as Mr. Howard was at the time of his crimes, grooming and victimizing minors.
Mr. Howard seeks to overturn all criminal laws when it comes to sexual crimes against minors, and have such acts dealt with as civil matters only. He seeks to reverse years of established criminal law in order to justify his own actions. That is his agenda, plain and simple.
The video link you provided, while thought-provoking at best, does nothing to abdicate Mr. Howard of his own crimes and radical Sex Offender agenda, which he has admitted to, nor does it nullify the facts in his specific case according to the State of Massachusetts.
Rusty Ray
Quote:
"The One said:
You ask me if I have evidence that Wikisposure contacted you, instead you should prove that you were not contacted by them."
Huh? That is just plain silly! This "The One" is a registered sex offender and dear friend & advocate of Walter Howard. Both hang together and support each others biased pro sex offender causes in seeking to have all sex offender restrictions ABOLISHED. This will furthermore endanger children, not protect them!
The One, I see Wikisposure has YOU on their website as well. Can you explain why you have called your victim a "lolita"? Or that she was long corrupted before you molested her? You have also bashed other abused victims, & Support a website called Reform Sex Offender Laws (RSOL)that was founded by NAMBLA members! This is my blog link below and I back up everything I say with hard factual proof. I oppose these biased offender advocates because their rhetoric is "self serving", Is not about protecting children from sexual abuse!
http://roarfortruth.blogspot.com/2010/05/sex-offe…
The One said:
"You should verify your facts before quoting a site like Wikisposure, a site currently being sued for defamation of character and harassment."
NOT really cause this lawsuit was Dismissed!
Kruska v. Perverted Justice Foundation, No. 2:08-cv-00054 (D. Arizona filed January 10, 2008).
Status: Dismissed; appeal dismissed, No. 09-15426 (9th Cir. mandate May 21, 2009).
I even wrote about this back in Jan 2010:
http://roarfortruth.blogspot.com/2010/01/jan-lose…
People in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Roar For Truth. As I recall, you're on Wikisposure, too, under the name Tsand. How time forgets, huh? Of course, should I believe everything Wikisposure has said about you, or will they eventually delete your Wikisposure page like they did Static because you're spreading lies along side them these days?
By the way, the suit is NOT over, it is currently under appeal. If you'd stop roaring, maybe you'd hear truth.
My only complaint here is the use of Wikisposure as a valid site. If they're valid, so is that Weekly World News rag I see in the Checkout lines.
Speaking of audio files, I'm curious as to where these audio files are at. Considering how you quote a gossip rag as a valid source, I can't help but to question your journalistic integrity.
Have you ever apologized to your victim? What is your justification in calling a 11 yr old child-a "Lolita"? You seem to forget that you were the ADULT. Your own brother told you to stay away from the child. You did not & your a sex offender because of it. To cast blame upon a child, is shameful. You've shown no remorse at all since your Lolita comment has been floating around the web for yrs now.
Here is a perfect opportunity, now, here, How about offering an open public apology for calling YOUR victim a LOLITA? Come on, step up. Man up!
The ball in your court.
Could "The One" Be Derek Logue, who was labelled a Tier 3 registered sex predator in Ohio, before he moved to Alabama? The one who called his victim a "lolita" and said she had "loose morals?" Derek is an adult man who was convicted and served years in prison for a sex crime against an 11 year old girl. He is pure filth.
http://community.dps.alabama.gov/Pages/wfReportPD… http://truthaboutdereklogue.blogspot.com/ http://www.wikisposure.com/Derek_Logue
"Here is a perfect opportunity, now, here, How about offering an open public apology for calling YOUR victim a LOLITA? Come on, step up. Man up! "
WE are still waiting….
How can you say your are a "reformed sex offender" if you do not apologize?
This deafening silence hurts your victim! Come on, step up and be righteous! Your silence tells us you are NOT reformed. Sad Very sad.
http://roarfortruth.blogspot.com/2010/05/waiting-…
My rebuttal to "The One" for refusing to apologize to his victim. I provide links to HIS website where he once showed "penance" but as time went on, he threw that penance out the window and has never turned back! Very sad that this is how he chooses to live his life. I cannot convince him he is wrong because he "sees" no wrong!
http://www.absolutezerounites.blogspot.com/
and
http://wikisposure.com/Tsand
There is only ONE similarity in the two sites I just posted. Tsand. Absolute Zero United and Perverted Justice/ Wikisposure have been stalking, defaming, and slandering for years, but they rely on one of their very own targets to do their dirty work for them. It is funny how Clay Keys is demanding anything from me while just two months ago, he was using a picture of Jessica Lunsford as an avatar on Google's blogspot just to piss off those same people he's now promoting.
I'd LOVE to hear you apologize to Mark Lunsford, Clay. Did YOU "man up" and admit to him you were using his murdered child as an avatar? And now Absolute Zero United backs you up?
The fact all these comments were "approved by the site administrator" further proves the total lack of integrity of this site. Good job, Rusty!
Quote:
"“Here is a perfect opportunity, now, here, How about offering an open public apology for calling YOUR victim a LOLITA? Come on, step up. Man up! ”
WE are still waiting…."
We aren't going to be side tracked by your ranting. Are you going to apologize or not?
If you keep "stalking" people, while sitting in that jail cell, are you going to blame yourself or others?
http://roarfortruth.blogspot.com/2010/05/waiting-…