American gets 25 years for child sexual abuse in PH

A 63-YEAR-OLD American was sentenced by a United States court on Thursday (Friday in Manila) to 25 years in prison for producing and distributing child sexual abuse material depicting a minor in the Philippines.

According to court documents, Joseph Daniel Zoll of the city of Sanford in York County, Maine, communicated with a child sex trafficker in the Philippines and paid the trafficker to sexually abuse a minor over a livestreaming video chat platform.

For around two years, Zoll repeatedly instructed the trafficker to sexually abuse the minor over livestreaming video calls. He engaged in similar conduct with multiple individuals in the Philippines over the same platform.

In addition, Zoll frequently recorded the livestreaming video calls, which he would then show to other individuals when instructing them to sexually abuse children during their own calls.

The Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) New England investigated the case that was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a US initiative to combat child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the US Justice Department.

Led by US Attorneys' Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.