Pedophiles

Officials here and in Brazil pledged Friday to accelerate the return to Chile of a notorious child pornography ringleader who was arrested last week in Brazil. The convicted pedophile, Rafael Maureira, 46, widely referred to by the pseudonym Zakarach, fled from a Santiago halfway house in March, causing a furor and triggering an international manhunt.

A team of international investigators infiltrated an Internet chat room used by pedophiles, rescuing 31 children and identifying more than 700 suspects worldwide. The chat room, called "Kids the Light of Our Lives," featured images, including live videos, of children being subjected to horrific sexual abuse, said Jim Gamble, chief executive of Britain's Child Exploitation and Online Protection Center.

A paroled child molester whose placement in a Mead Valley halfway house in 2005 ignited months of protests by local residents died Friday morning, most likely from brain cancer, while in a Riverside County hospital jail ward, authorities said. David Allyn Dokich, 54, died at Riverside County Regional Medical Center in Moreno Valley, said Riverside County sheriff's spokesman Jerry Franchville.

Demonstrators plan to picket Leisure World on Sunday to notify neighbors of the residency of Michael Wempe, a former Roman Catholic priest paroled after serving a three-year sentence for molesting a boy. Wempe, 67, was paroled in February, with little publicity, said Mary Grant, director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests.

A former Roman Catholic priest said in court Wednesday that the rights of homosexuals have been violated by a state law that makes it easier to prosecute gay pedophiles than heterosexual child molesters. It apparently was the first time that gay rights had been introduced into the ongoing prosecution of current and former Catholic priests alleged to have molested children. The state law in question imposes no time limits on prosecuting heterosexuals who force intercourse.

"Deliver Us From Evil," a documentary about pedophile priest Oliver O'Grady and his devastating California legacy, has earned its filmmaker multiple awards and an Oscar nomination. Now the film is kicking up new controversy and litigation from L.A. to Ireland, where O'Grady now lives. Released in the U.S.

More than one raver or beat-hippie idly surfing network TV on the evening of Jan. 30 knew a brute shock of the all-too-familiar. NBC's "Dateline," in another installment of its sordid and successful "To Catch a Predator" series, rolled tape on the latest batch of vermin lured to an obscure Long Beach residence with online promises of sex with (fictitious) young teens. Caught in "Dateline's" on-camera haul was musician Matty Nash, the percussionist-founder of L.A.

A pedophile priest could be kept in prison despite completing his sentence if he is found to be a sexually violent predator, prison officials said Wednesday. Michael Edwin Wempe, 67, was convicted and sentenced to a maximum of three years in prison last year for molesting a boy in Los Angeles. But Wempe spent 600 days in custody awaiting trial, and had been due for release Jan. 6.

By Saturday, this quiet residential neighborhood had, on the surface, returned to normal. The sun warmed the morning chill. A dog barked in the distance, and children played in their backyards. But inside an otherwise empty stone-and-brick rental house were reminders of an undercover police operation that caused an uproar in this neighborhood last week: Electronic equipment was stacked on a kitchen counter. A stuffed toy hung from a chandelier like a Christmas ornament.

An American lawyer was barred from entering Mexico after he sued the country's Roman Catholic archbishop, saying that he had conspired to protect a pedophile priest. The five-year exclusion order was issued in Mexico City against Jeffrey Anderson, known for his many lawsuits against the Catholic Church on behalf of alleged victims of clergy sexual abuse. Last month, Anderson alleged that Cardinal Roger M.