GENITAL MUTILATORS SENTENCED.Byline: Daily News Two Canyon Country residents who investigators said agreed to perform female genital mutilation female genital mutilation: see circumcision. on two minors were sentenced Wednesday to federal prison terms after pleading guilty to conspiracy, child pornography Child pornography is the visual representation of minors under the age of 18 engaged in sexual activity or the visual representation of minors engaging in lewd or erotic behavior designed to arouse the viewer's sexual interest. and obscenity obscenity, in law, anything that tends to corrupt public morals by its indecency. The moral concepts that the term connotes vary from time to time and from place to place. In the United States, the word obscenity is a technical legal term. In the 1950s the U.S. charges. Todd Cameron Bertrang, 43, was sentenced to five years in federal prison. His girlfriend, Robyn Faulkinbury, 25, will serve two years in prison. The pair pleaded guilty in May 2004 of conspiracy and possession of child pornography. Additionally, Bertrang pleaded guilty of distributing child pornography and being a felon An individual who commits a crime of a serious nature, such as Burglary or murder. A person who commits a felony. felon n. a person who has been convicted of a felony, which is a crime punishable by death or a term in state or federal prison. in possession of several firearms. Court documents show that Bertrang had a business that offered body piercing body piercing Body image A disruption of a mucocutaneous surface with jewelry or dangling artifices. See Tattoos. and body modifications, and he advertised these services on the Internet. An undercover FBI agent saw his Web site and contacted Bertrang in the fall of 2002, according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office. In a series of communications, Bertrang offered to perform female genital mutilation on two fictitious minor children, ages 8 and 12, for $8,000, according to the report. Bertrang told investigators that he had performed more female circumcisions than anyone else in the Western world - a claim that investigators have been unable to substantiate. The case against Bertrang and Faulkinbury is the first filed under the federal Prohibition of Female Genital Mutilation Act of 1995, which outlawed female circumcision or removal of certain sexual organs of girls under the age of 18 unless necessary for the health of the patient and performed by a licensed medical doctor. Neither Bertrang nor Faulkinbury was licensed to practice medicine in California. Bertrang and Faulkinbury were arrested Dec. 19, 2002, the same day the FBI executed a search warrant at their home and found two computers that contained child pornography. Faulkinbury also pleaded guilty of obscenity for Web site posting of pictures of herself after genital mutilation genital mutilation The destruction or removal of a portion or the entire external genitalia, which may occur in the context of a crime of passion or as part of a cultural rite. See Bobbittize, Cutter, Female circumcision, Self-mutilation. , also female circumcision. The case was investigated by a regional felony sexual assault team of agents and investigators from a number of agencies, including the FBI and the Medical Board of California. |
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