Joseph Lukondi, 43, of Mosca has been charged with five felonies associated with an undercover Internet sex investigation.

Mosca man held on

$50K bond



By ERIC MULLENS

SAGUACHE — An investigation using law enforcement personnel posing as young teens has resulted in the arrest of a 43-year old Mosca man on five felony counts.

Saguache County Sheriff’s Investigator Mark Werts announced Thursday that Joseph Lukondi was arrested Sept. 16 at a Center residence where he had allegedly traveled to from his Mosca home to have sex with a 13-year old girl and her aunt.

Waiting at the residence were Saguache authorities who took Lukondi into custody after a short struggle according to Werts.

Lukondi has been booked into the Saguache County Jail on charges of internet sexual exploitation of a child (class 4 felony), enticement of a child (class 4 felony) internet luring of a child (class 5 felony) sexual exploitation of children (a class 3 felony) and contributing to the delinquency of a child ( class 4 felony).

The case began when a Center resident contacted the sheriff’s office and reported that she had been in a Yahoo Messenger chat with a male who identified himself as Joseph Aloha who allegedly said he could get a 14-year old girl to have sex with them. Werts interviewed the Center woman and then he went on-line to the site and posed as a 13-year old niece of the woman. According to Werts several sexually explicit chats were exchanged between the suspect and the lawman. Werts said Lukondi requested sexual acts from the Center woman and the 13-year old child he thought he was chatting with.

On Wednesday, Rio Grande County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Angela Steffans, posing as the 13-year old, chatted with Lukondi on-line in the presence of several law enforcement agents including Werts, deputy VanZalinge and Undersheriff Warwick.

“A web cam was used during part of the evening,” Werts said.

During the sting operation arrangements were made for the suspect to come to the Center residence.

“Later that night the male, later identified as Joseph Lukondi of Mosca, arrived at the residence to have sexual acts with what he thought to be the 13-year old and who he thought was her aunt (the original complainant),” said Werts.

Werts said Lukondi brought rum to give to the child and her aunt, a component of this type of sting operation familiar to viewers of NBC television network’s ‘To Catch a Predator’ series.

Werts said the suspect was arrested at the residence following a short lived struggle and was transported to the county jail.

A search warrant was later executed at Lukondi’s home and one computer was seized. That item will be sent to a special internet forensic team in Canon City, Colo. for analysis.

The Saguache Sheriff’s Office is part of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force based at the Colorado Springs Police Department.

Werts said the sheriff’s office was thankful to the Center resident for contacting law enforcement in a timely manner and thanked the Rio Grande County Sheriff for his office’s assistance in the investigation and arrest of Lukondi.

An arrest of this sort in the Valley illustrates the fact the whole world, good and bad, is accessible to internet users.

Adam Romine of the CSPD Internet Crimes Against Children Unit says some 750,000 sexual predators are constantly prowling the internet in a bid to gain contact with children. A United Nations report on the subject was released Wednesday, ironically the same day the arrest of Lukondi came about here in the Valley.

“The growing number of (internet) sites devoted to child pornography worldwide,” says UN Special Rapporteur on Child Prostitution and Child Pornography Najat Maala. “Images of sexually exploited children are not only growing in number but are also increasingly shocking,” she said. Estimates indicate between 10,000 and 100,000 minors are victims of the worldwide child pornography network.



Information for parents



How online predators work

• They find kids through social networking sites, blogs, chat rooms, instant messaging, discussion boards and other Web sites

• They seduce their targets through attention, affection, kindness and even gifts

• They listen to and sympathize with kid’s problems

• They try to ease young people’s inhibitions by gradually introducing sexual content into their conversations or by showing children sexually explicit material



Parent / child communication is key

There are a number of precautions kids and parents can take to reduce the risk a child will be victimized by an Internet predator

• Never download an image from an unknown source

• Use e-mail filters

• Tell an adult immediately if anything happens online that makes them (the child) feel uncomfortable or frightened

• The use of a gender neutral screen name that doesn’t contain sexually suggestive words of reveal personal information



Other steps a parent should take

• Communicate with your child - know their friends both those from school and the community, but their online contacts as well

• Teach children to use the Internet responsibly and keep the home computer in a high traffic area

• Make sure you know your child’s log-on passwords and that no one else does

• Set time limits for Internet use

• Familiarize yourself with the computer, its programs and the ways your children use it to communicate

• Know about the meanings and abbreviations and acronyms used in chat room and on-line communications



Parents, relatives, friends and others should always immediately report any suspicious Internet activity to their local law enforcement agencies.