Las Vegas NowFBI Asks Public to Help Identify Pedophiles

FBI Asks Public to Help Identify Pedophiles

(Mar. 3) -- The FBI beefed-up its efforts today to put child molestors behind bars and they want your help. The agency is putting pictures of unidentified adults engaged in sexual acts with minors on the Internet and on television in hopes the public can identify them.

The FBI says it was able to track down Harold Shaw in Las Vegas after he used his credit card to buy child pornography online. After searching his home, they say they also found a videotape of Shaw molesting an 11-year-old girl.

Larry Michael Jeffs is now behind bars and being held without bond. He is charged with sexually molesting a two-month-old girl. The FBI says he distributed pictures of the sexual acts online. Agents were able to trace those pictures back to his e-mail account and arrested Jeff's in his California home.

But putting  a pedophile behind bars is not always so easy. Many times investigators find pictures online but the they don't know who the people are. Now the FBI hopes that by posting the pictures of pedophile on their website someone can identify them.

"Equally important as the identity of the perpetrators is the greater opportunity of identifying the child victims," said assistant director Jana Monroe, FBI Cyber Division. It's part of the FBI's "Innocent Images" Program. And it's goes beyond using cyberspace to bring pedophiles to justice.

The FBI has teamed up with the television show America's Most Wanted in order to bring the photos into millions of living rooms. "I had prayed over the years that a day like this would come. That I would see cooperation on a federal, state, and local level that hunts down the dirt bags that prey upon our children," said John Walsh, host of America's Most Wanted.

Two men have already been arrested after their pictures were seen on the show. And the hope is this is just the beginning of putting and end to child exploitation.