Hey guys,
Yesterday a high school wrestling coach from Moses Brown was arrested on child pornography charges. Robert Simone is a 21 year old assistant coach for the team. Apparently Simone posed as a teenage girl on an instant messaging service and coerced a 15-year old boy to send him sexually explicit photos and videos. Simone told the boy that if he did not continue to send him these types of materials, that he would post previous photos and videos of the boy on YouTube and FaceBook.
The internet has provided predators of all types a safe, anonymous arena on which to prey. When online, they can be anything…. Any gender, any age, any job… they can create an entirely new person with fake photos and profiles, all in an attempt to hurt and/or exploit the innocent; and in many cases those innocents are children.
As the former DateLine special To Catch a Predator illustrated a few years back, communities around the country are fighting these anonymous internet monsters. These types of people prey on the weak and vulnerable.
The most dangerous predators are people in positions of authority and trust over kids; police, religious leaders, coaches, and even teachers...etc. Kids have an expectation of trust with these people, and because these people know and understand how kids operate from being around them so much, a predator would find it very easy to exploit, fool, and hurt them.
Simone will be facing charges of possession of child pornography, soliciting a child, and extortion. If convicted of all of these charges, he should have plenty of time to think about his actions in prison… if it were up to me, people guilty of these types of crimes would never get out of jail!
What do you think?
- X
THis sickens me, because a person does not really realize the possibilities of what could happen, until it happens around you. The thought that a high school coach, especially in the sport of wrestling, which has its athletes exposed the most, is just jaw dropping.
ReplyDeleteI have friends who are on the wrestling team here at Pilgrim who have wrestled against Moses Brown, who are now finding out that they have been around a person as sick as this. I agree, that people convicted of these crimes should never be let out of prison, and should rot in their cells.
It is people like this who alarm me.
ReplyDeleteI really like the point about how it is often people who have authority who commit these crimes. It is the people who you expect and want to trust that can hurt you the most, espeically your coach like this man. I feel like there is a sense of "why me" to the victim of sexual crimes. There is such a sense of insecurity from something like this and often people dettach from people they trust, when in reality they need the people they trust most for support. I wonder if this man thought of the boy's feelings and what it can do to him. Rhode Island is such a small state, yet such tragic things can happen.
I think that along with punishing the predator, we should use instances like this to help educate kids on the dangers of the internet. And not just to stop them from meeting people they do not know, but also about sending explicit picture/videos. I think that teens need to know the dangers of sending others explicit pictures of themselves. The boy had a lot of guts to come clean to his mother about what he had done in order to put a stop to it. I give him credit for that much, though he should not have sent it in the first place. I do think that parents and teachers should use things like what happened to this boy to warn them and teach them not to make the same mistakes.
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ReplyDeleteI know you can't see me, but I am shaking my head right now. This is absolutely unbelievable. The guy is twenty-one years old, and he has just thrown his entire reputation, and any potential hopes for future jobs, down the drain. I honestly do not know what drives people like this man do such things. I do not know who compels a person to pose as a fifteen-year-old girl to obtain sexually explicit material from a underaged child.
ReplyDeleteOne word can describe these types of people: sick. I find it inexcusable for a twenty-one-year old, who is supposed to be mature by hitting this age, to be as conniving and deceitful as he was in this case; and he did this only to get naked photos and videos of a child? Absolutely sickening. I hope he is (literally) thrown in prison, and has to serve a very, very long time there.
This really makes it seem real, being so close to us. I am uncomfortable reading this, eww. The thing that amazed me was that the boy went to his mother, that must have been so hard but thank god for understanding parents. This does show how dangerous it really is to be "sexting" and sending inappropriate pictures about.
ReplyDeletethis is not only discusting but it is really shocking! You see and hear about this stuff on the news but you never actually think that it is going to happen in a place so close to where we live. This man is a very sick person and I feel as though he deserves to suffer immensley.It really is sick and the whole situation scares me. It is so true that athority figures are the ones that are the most dangerous. Students feel as though we can trust them because of their job titles and how they act towards us, we build a bond with them and then we realize that we dont really know the person. Well we know them but not about their past, we dont know if they have been a creepy predator in the past or what, thinking about this topic makes me really wanna stop and think now before trusting an adult of higher athority. I think that an action as sick as this especially from a coach that is around teenagers quite often should result in life in prison. Who says the person wont try the act agian when they get out? No one knows for sure which is why we need to keep kids safe and lock people like this up for good!
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ReplyDeleteI hope this guy knows that everyone is happy he's behind bars. People like this should never get out. They're just as bad as murderers or rapists. Since he wanted to satisfy his sick obsession, this teenager will forever be haunted by this experience.
ReplyDeleteThis can be avoided though. People are way to open with their information today. If you don't know internet safety, you shouldn't be on the internet unsupervised. It's basically common sense. If you wouldn't tell someone all of your personal information in person, why would you tell millions of strangers on facebook or twitter?
-Brandon Maxwell
I can't even find a word to describe this. The case that is presented is bad enough if it was a random creep. This is a coach. A high school coach, who probably was able to influence his players. And one that's from around here. It really seems to hammer things home when something bad happens near you. People could deny that there are cases like this, but it's hard to deny it when it's almost literally on their doorstep.
ReplyDeleteThe Internet is arguably the easiest place to lie. Think about what's happened in recent times, all those scandals. A lot of them involve the Internet, Facebook, and false identities. Not that I'm bashing the Internet or Facebook. But it is so easy to say that you're 18 when you're really 14. I'm sure that many students are guilty of that regarding social networks. You really never know if all you see is true. It's easy to take it a step from lying about your age to lying about your gender. Then to lie directly to someone. You see where this is going. It doesn't mean that the Internet shouldn't be used because it's dangerous. It just means that a little common sense and caution wouldn't hurt.
No wonder why people have trust issues today. People who pose as leaders like you stated: police officers, teachers, authoritative members of society all betray innocent children who are unfortunately in a wrong place.
ReplyDeleteIt's awful to hear that people who are supposed to be role models for growing children take a turn for the worse and end up letting down thousands of others in the process.
This man should be ashamed of himself, and his actions. He is a complete sicko and I agree, he should not get out of jail for the things he's done. This poor child was ridden of his pride and will have some serious psychological treatment to undergo to gain back his pride in trust in just about anyone.
What an awful crowd this world is filled with. I'm disgusted.