Anyone You Want Me to Be (27 page)

A
s crime had spread across the Net, law enforcement had begun to gain ground on those using the Web for illegal ends. In 1996, the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section of the U.S. Department of Justice created the Infotech Training Working Group to investigate on-line violations of the law. This office evolved into the National Cybercrime Training Partnership (NCTP), and the NCTP worked with various levels of law enforcement to develop long-range strategies, raise public awareness, and build momentum to combat the problem on many different fronts. The National White Collar Crime Center (NW3C), based in Richmond, Virginia, offered operational support to the NCTP and functioned as an information clearinghouse for cyber-crime (on-line white-collar crime involves identify theft, theft of assets, or fraud). All these agencies worked together to generate more funding to help law enforcement keep up with the ever-changing computer world. Those in charge of policing the Net looked upon their mission as a battle that they could not afford to lose.

“The technology revolution is here and it is not only assisting law enforcement, it is working for the criminals,” said Richard L. Johnston, the director of NW3C. “There is very little time to accomplish a lot with limited resources. We are at a crossroad. The sense of urgency to focus on program coordination, deploying a plan quickly, and underwriting every initiative with a solid base of training is real because the window of opportunity for law enforcement to keep pace with cyber-crime is not only short—it’s closing.”

One problem for the authorities was the difficulty police departments had in competing with private companies for computer expertise. Trained technical personnel could usually earn far more money in the private sector than working for public agencies. Near the end of his second term as president, Bill Clinton took measures to alleviate the situation by announcing plans for congressional funding for scholarships to those who studied computer security and then agreed to join the Federal Cyber Service after graduation. The program was modeled on the military one that had been successfully used by the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps on college campuses.

In 1999, the FBI and hundreds of police departments around the country began using software called the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or VICAP, so they could share information to track kidnappers, rapists, and murderers. The software allows the agencies to send requests for information electronically and to cross-reference their investigative work, and it has led to a database holding eighty thousand cases. The program has connected vital clues found in different locations and helped solved many cases. Two examples are the Rafael Resendez-Ramirez, the Texas Railroad Killer, case, and the Samantha Runnion murder case in California. VICAP now churns out about eighty leads a month.

Also in 1999, the Training and Research Institute of NW3C conducted an in-depth survey on white-collar violations of the law. The institute found that in part because of the recent emergence of the Internet, one in three American households were now the victims of white-collar crime. Traditional street crimes were falling in many places around the nation, but high-tech crimes were on the rise. The institute also found that only 7 percent of these on-line victims contacted a law enforcement agency. To boost this figure, in May 2000, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the NW3C announced the creation of the Internet Fraud Complaint Center (IFCC). The new organization was established to provide a vehicle for victims nationwide to report incidents of on-line fraud (in 2002, eBay introduced a “university,” where one could go on the Net and take classes that helped a person avoid cyber-fraud).

“The Internet Fraud Complaint Center allows consumers who suspect Internet fraud to share that information with law enforcement quickly and efficiently,” Attorney General Janet Reno said at the time the IFCC was introduced. “Our ability to work with private citizens and industry is extremely important to our efforts to fight Internet crime, and the IFCC is a major step forward in that fight.”

“The Internet,” said then FBI director Louis J. Freeh, “provides a boundless new medium for many traditional frauds investigated by the FBI. That there are real victims suffering significant losses remains unchanged. This center is another positive development as law enforcement responds to yet another facet of cyber-crime.”

In early 2001, the IFCC issued its first study on Internet fraud, and the numbers were significant. In its initial six months of operation, the IFCC received 20,014 fraud complaints, and 6,087 of those were referred to law enforcement agencies throughout the nation. California ranked first in Internet fraud victims and criminals, followed by Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, and New York. The FBI does not have a statistical percentage for the clearance or solution rate, but due to the difficulty of tracing the origin of on-line fraud violation and the overall complexity of this kind of investigation, the clearance rate is currently low.

“E-business is no longer just a buzzword,” said Texas State securities commissioner and NW3C board member Denise Voigt Crawford in response to this report. “It’s here to stay and we must find ways to help consumers and businesses have confidence in the transaction technology they choose. Part of the commitment to our electronic commerce community rests in law enforcement’s ability to respond quickly to crime problems as they arise. To do that, enforcement professionals at all levels must have training and programs in place to prepare them to meet new challenges.”

Later in 2001, the National Cybercrime Training Partnership held a number of focus group meetings and found that “electronic crime is having a profound effect on law enforcement and no agency is escaping it.” After conducting a survey of thirty-one state and local law enforcement agencies responsible for training more than eighty-four thousand people to combat Internet crime, the NCTP called for more program coordination, fast-track initiatives implementation, and skills training. In its report, the NCTP listed the ten most critical issues surrounding Internet crime:

1. Raising public awareness of the problem
   
2. Getting citizens to report on-line crime
   
3. Uniform training of legal personnel
   
4. On-site management assistance for electronic-crime units and task forces
   
5. Updated laws applied at the federal and state levels—to keep pace with electronic crime
   
6. Cooperation with the high-tech industry
   
7. Special research and publications to give investigators all the research they need to fight electronic crime
   
8. More management support for the tools to investigate and prosecute on-line cases
   
9. More investigative and forensic tools to provide police with expensive up-to-date technology
   
10. Structuring and training computer crime units so they can best analyze electronic evidence
    

In May 2001, as a result of the growing sophistication on the part of law enforcement, the FBI, the Department of Justice, and the NW3C announced that criminal charges were being brought against nearly ninety individuals and companies accused of Internet fraud. The massive investigation, called Operation Cyber Loss, was initiated by the IFCC and included charges of on-line auction fraud, systemic nondelivery of merchandise purchased over the Internet, credit /debit card fraud, bank fraud, investment fraud, money laundering, multilevel marketing and Ponzi/Pyramid schemes, and intellectual property rights violations. Altogether these frauds victimized fifty-six thousand people who lost in excess of $117 million.

“Just as neighborhood watch programs keep watch over their neighborhoods and report suspicious activity to law enforcement,” said Attorney General Ashcroft, “Internet users now have a ‘cyber-community watch program.’ When individual citizens, businesses, and consumer agencies work with law enforcement at all levels, we help ensure the safety and security of the Internet.”

Government groups weren’t the only ones sending out warning signals about the Net. Two Virginia-based private organizations, the National Law Center for Children and Enough Is Enough, provided information to parents, teachers, and local, state, or federal employees about the dangers of child pornography, while supporting legislative efforts to control or get rid of it. Written material produced by Enough Is Enough described child porn as a billion-dollar-a-year industry that was a threat to children “both morally and physically…. Any child with a computer can simply ‘call up’ and…‘printout’ pictures that are unspeakably pornographic.” The literature described in detail how child predators used the Internet to find kids before meeting them in person and molesting them.

“There are more outlets for hard-core pornography in America,” it concluded, “than McDonald’s restaurants.”

(For statistics regarding these Web sites and a list of tips to avoid their dangers, see Appendices A and B starting on page 287.)

J
ohn Robinson’s preliminary hearing had originally been scheduled for the fall of 2000, but it was postponed twice at the request of his lawyers. After months of delay, the proceedings finally began on the morning of February 5, 2001, in the sober courtroom of Judge John Anderson III. With his Kansas Death Penalty Defense Unit at his side, led by Ron Evans, Robinson prepared to face the first of his accusers in court. Sitting across from the defendant was Paul Morrison and his assistant district attorney, Sara Welch. Because of the hearing, the Johnson County Courthouse had heightened security and everyone who entered the courtroom had been carefully screened. All media people had to get passes and go through a metal detector. Armed deputies were on hand, and most reporters felt that they were being watched closely. This judge wanted them to behave respectfully in his courtroom. The sense that one mistake could derail the entire process for months and months—or get a spectator ejected—pervaded the atmosphere. This was the first case in Kansas in thirty-six years that many people felt could end with an execution, and from the start it was surrounded by gravity.

Some of the victims’ relatives had taken up one side of the chamber, while members of Robinson’s family were sitting on the other. The scene echoed the one described in
In Cold Blood,
the Truman Capote book detailing the murder of the Clutter family in western Kansas in 1959. Six years later, Dick Hickock, a native of Olathe, along with Perry Smith, had been hanged in Leavenworth.

For five days, witnesses entered the redbrick courthouse in the Johnson County Square, while nearby bell chimes played Christian hymns and other innocent-sounding melodies. The juxtaposition of the graphic testimony and the strains of “How Great Thou Art” or Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “If I Loved You” was startling. Many worlds were intersecting here at once, and this lent a surreal quality to the whole event. Lore Remington was the first witness, and her plain appearance stood in striking contrast to the gritty details of her testimony about the world of S&M. This wife and mother from Nova Scotia who looked as average and normal as Robinson, shattered all preconceptions about those who take part in the sadomasochistic subculture.

While the journalists furiously took notes in stone quiet, the Robinson family members listened intently but showed no emotion, as if this information was completely foreign to the man they knew. This was the first time that Remington had ever seen Robinson in the flesh, and she tried to avoid his stare. Her voice was absolutely flat as she identified the on-line cowboy picture of Robinson that he’d sent out to so many women in cyberspace, but her demeanor was more forceful when she testified about having warned Suzette about mixing business with pleasure when she went to Kansas for what she thought was a new job. Remington conveyed the impression of someone having second thoughts about her Internet relationships. Courtroom observers couldn’t help asking themselves how much her husband and children knew of her double life.

Carol Trouten, an aging blonde with a raspy voice, testified next, and unlike Lore, she could not suppress feelings toward Robinson. Her skin reddened with anger as she tried to make eye contact with Robinson, who turned away from her by scribbling on his legal pad. Suzette’s mother said that her daughter was “always on the computer,” but Carol admitted that she had no idea of Suzette’s involvement in S&M. The prosecutors asked Carol to identify pastel-colored stationery that she thought she was receiving from Suzette. As she left the stand, Carol gave one last, long look of revulsion toward the defendant, who remained impassive. Robinson, dressed in a dark business suit, looked extremely busy throughout the proceedings, just as he had once looked so busy at Santa Barbara Estates, as if he’d now taken on the new role of attorney. He acted as though he were engrossed in a business meeting.

The only witness who took an opportunity to share her feelings about Robinson was Kathy Klinginsmith, Lisa Stasi’s sister-in-law. It was to her home that Robinson had come in a snowstorm in January 1985, so he could gather up Lisa and Tiffany and take them away from her relatives for the last time. Kathy told the court that she had been terribly worried about Lisa and the baby that day and she’d wanted to chase after them once Robinson had removed them from her house, but she was “too scared” to make a move. Back then, the defendant had called himself John Osbourne. When Paul Morrison asked Klinginsmith to identify the man who’d used that name in 1985, she stared right at Robinson.

“He looks older,” she said, “but he still looks evil.”

Following a brief appearance by mobile-home-park maintenance worker Carlos Ibarra, Nancy Robinson was sworn in. With her daughter Christy looking on, the sweet-faced blonde, dressed in a conservative suit, took the stand. After being told by the judge that she did not have to testify against her husband, she went ahead anyway. She did not look at her spouse of thirty-six years and was inscrutable. As she laid out the details of how Robinson had brought home an infant fifteen years earlier and asked her to take care of the baby, she identified Tiffany Stasi from a family photograph. Everyone in the picture, including Don and Helen Robinson and John Robinson, looked extremely pleased with the new addition. When she left the stand, Nancy acted as if she’d never seen her husband before. If she said nothing under oath that directly hurt her husband, she also offered nothing that helped him. She did not provide an alibi for any of the time frames around any of the crimes he was charged with committing. She was cooperative with the prosecution and looked stunned at finding herself on the witness stand. In time, her testimony would evolve.

After testifying, Nancy sat in the gallery and listened as Vickie Neufeld was sworn in and recounted her sexual relationship with the defendant. Nancy, sitting just a few feet behind her husband, watched as the DA brought out the contents from the bag of sex toys that Robinson had taken from Neufeld: rabbit fur, anal vibrators, and riding crops. Nancy revealed nothing of what she was feeling as witnesses unraveled the endless list of things her spouse had done outside her marriage. The grislier the details, the more bland her expression became. The sheer variety of his lovers, as they came into the courtroom and testified, was remarkable. From Alecia Cox, the streetwise African-American woman who had managed to escape from Robinson, to Barbara Sandre, the Canadian who conjured up Tammy Faye Bakker, to the descriptions of the genital rings on Suzette Trouten and the gothic appearance of Izabela Lewicka, it was clear that Robinson’s tastes ran the gamut. He had been very busy indeed.

But the most riveting testimony came from Vickie Neufeld and Jeanna Milliron, who had survived beatings by the defendant. Nancy Robinson absorbed the stories of how they had come to Kansas City looking for a relationship and ended up calling the police to file complaints about her husband. Both Neufeld and Milliron were graphic in their recounting of sex with Robinson. That Nancy could listen to all this may have given some hint as to why she had stayed in such a marriage for nearly four decades. Only someone with an extremely high threshold for denial could have endured this spectacle—especially in public. Even veteran courtroom officials were squirming at this testimony. During the breaks, women reporters gathered in the rest rooms and shared their astonishment at Nancy’s lack of emotion. Perhaps she was as numb as she looked. The female journalists were surprised at how cavalier some of Robinson’s sex partners appeared on the stand. Barbara Sandre, on the other hand, seemed angered and humiliated at how easily she had been duped.

When the courtroom revelations became too intense and embarrassing for some of the legal support personnel, they tittered and blushed and made jokes to ease their discomfort. Olathe had never before been exposed to such a salacious event.

At the end of the week, as a snow and ice storm descended on the metropolitan area, Judge Anderson ruled that Robinson had to stand trial on seven of the eight charges (Milliron’s assault charge was thrown out). At first it seemed the trial might get under way later in 2001, but John Robinson had never been predictable and jail hadn’t changed that. After numerous delays, the trial was set for January 14, 2002, almost a full year after the preliminary hearing, but this date would not be kept either.