USAF NCO jailed for 120 years for sexually exploiting children

Washington: A former US Air Force non- commissioned officer has been sentenced to 120 years in prison for sexually exploiting minors, including one child as young as five months old, to produce child pornography. William Gazafi, 44, of Maryland was sentenced by US District Judge Roger W Titus to 120 years in prison for six counts of sexually exploiting a minor to produce child pornography, US Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J Rosenstein said yesterday. According to the indictment, court documents and statements made at his plea hearing, on August 15 last year, Gazafi engaged in a chat with an undercover officer on a website dedicated to incest discussions. During the chat, he discussed his sexual interest in children and advised that he had been drugging and molesting several children, including an infant. He also sent seven images to the undercover officer, three of which were child pornography Gazafi stated he produced after drugging the child. Gazafi was subsequently identified and arrested, the US Justice Department said in a press release. At the time of his arrest, Gazafi was carrying multiple digital media items. A forensic examination of those items, and others seized from his residence, found videos and images that he produced of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, including one child as young as five months old, the release said. The images also depict children bound and handcuffed while sleeping. In addition to producing hundreds of images of five children, ranging in age from five months to seven years, Gazafi distributed the images he produced to others on the Internet. He possessed over 15,000 images and videos of children being sexually abused, many of toddler and infant age. At the time of his arrest, Gazafi was a non-commissioned officer in the US Air Force working at Andrews Air Force Base near here.

Earlier, the FBI said it has rescued 168 children and arrested 281 pimps in a countrywide crackdown on child sex trafficking. The operation, which took place over the last week in more than 100 cities, involved nearly 400 law enforcement agencies, authorities said yesterday.