Funfest Has Junny In Its Heart
A day of fun and solidarity is on tap for Saturday November 22nd, at Protect Our Children's "Celebration in the Park." Billed as a "Fall Safety Funfest," the event will be filled with fun and games for kids, with an inspiring moment for adults at 1:00 PM when the "Junny" award will be presented to Melbourne Attorney George Paulk. Mr. Paulk, a long-time member of the Guardian Ad Litem program, has appeared in court more than 1,000 times in the last seven years on behalf of local children.
Admission and parking are free for the event. Tickets for food and some activities are 50 cents each. Children will enjoy face painting, pie-in-the-face-toss, craft booths, pumpkin bowling, ducky races and more. Food booths will serve pulled pork, hot and cold cider, popcorn, candy and a ton of fresh baked goodies. Musicians and entertainers will perform on our Celebration Stage. While clowns circulate the crowd, children can meet the Brevard County Sheriff's Crime-Stopper Robot and "Deputy Courage" Action Hero. The County S.W.A.T. Team will demonstrate tactics and the K-9 unit is always a favorite with kids. Comemorative "T" shirts will also be on sale.
The fun starts at 11:00 AM at 2100 Westminster Drive in Cocoa. Junny Rios-Martinez park is located on State Road 524, one mile West of the Cocoa Walmart.
"SOFT-CORE" HARDMAN STILL RECRUITING KIDS
FIFTH GRADER OFFERED BONUS FOR WEARING SKIMPY SUIT
Melbourne resident Dave Hardman (left) has added a new wrinkle to his kiddie-erotica business. Now his customers can buy swimsuits along with movies of young girls wearing them. (Photo Courtesy of WFTV, Orlando)
by Kevin Gillick,Summer 2008
A Melbourne man who peddles sexy movies featuring preteen girls, appears to be back in business after a seven-month break. David Hardman is on the hunt for fresh talent, according to a Deltona mother whose eleven year-old daughter was scheduled for a photo shoot at Hardman's home in June.
"I can't believe I almost fell for this..." says Suzanne Mark, "...my daughter was asked to do a photo shoot for Dave Hardman."
Mark said she responded to an online ad for children to model swimsuits for sale on the net. Hardman sent her a link to site operated by an actual swimsuit manufacturer. The catalogue has benign photos of children modeling swimwear with one frontal picture and one rear. Beneath each graphic is the item name and price.
"It was presented to me that it was a swimsuit site...as in a purchase site...not the purchase the DVD site I found after some research."
Mark E-mailed the Guardian on June 10th - the same day her daughter was scheduled to report to Hardman's house for her session.
She discovered his "near-porn" site: "DHPro", only the night before. After searching Hardman's name, she found news coverage posted by local TV stations last Fall.
Hardman's quiet, Melbourne neighborhood was rocked by media attention last year when he posted sexy pictures of preteen girls on his site. The images are teasers to get customers to purchase movies of the scantily- clad girls. The youngest models, age ten and twelve, were interviewed by a news team from WSVN in Miami. The mother of the ten year-old, said she was shocked to know Hardman was selling movies of her daughter Kyra.
Hardman offers parents $500 dollars to sign a release granting him unlimited rights to the movies and pictures of the children. Most material is shot in his house on Mt Carmel Lane, which is equipped with a homemade performance stage. Some of Brevard's beaches have also been used as settings for the movies which Hardman sells directly to consumers.
The soft-core porn is legal because Hardman is careful not to show exposed genitalia. But legislation sponsored by Sen. Mike Fasano (R) of New Port Richey, could change that. Governor Crist signed a new law July 1st, allowing prosecutors to charge teen modeling producers under an expanded definition of "obscenity". Now, manufacturers of material deemed "obscene" according to community standards, can be charged with a felony in the third degree.
The new law enhances penalties for erotica vendors who pose as modeling agencies. It also restricts a parent's ability to sell unlimited rights to images of their children.
A nimble businessman, Hardman seems determined to press on with his venture. As if to answer critics who say he's peddling porn, not modeling swimsuits, he has opened a new site: "Dayla Bay Swimwear" is a web store that actually sells bathing suits along with the salacious DVD's.
Although his current models appear to be in their teens, and movies of the ten year-old are no longer available, the new catalogue offers his slobbering clientele a hint as to his intentions. He notes that his sexy garments, can be sized for "progressive teens and preteens".
Posted by Protect Our Children on July 25, 2008 at 11:13 AM Permalink
Conference Focuses on Internet Safety: "Guardian" Group Picks McCollum for Annual Award
Attorney General Bill McCollum has been selected to receive the 2007 "Junny Award" for his leadership in promoting aggressive measures to protect children from Internet predators. Last year's recipient was Mark Lunsford.
Child protection experts from around the nation will gather in Cocoa Beach, on April 16-17 for The National Safe Child Symposium. Sponsored by local charity, The Yellow Umbrella, this year's event will be held at the Doubletree Hotel Oceanfront. The group's president Sherry Meaders says the event is a call to action: "We want to insure that every child is safe in the home and in the community."
The symposium will kick off with a professional development class on the I-SAFE program sponsored by the Department of Justice. Keynote speaker Joe Sammartano will train adults to teach children the latest techniques in Internet safety. Attendees will receive four credits for their participation and a copy of the PC Pandora cyber safety software.
Sammartano is a nationally recognized child advocate, and president of MySafeKids, a web based group which has developed a comprehensive safety program for kids and parents. He will also give a keynote speech during the conference.
Other luminaries in the American child protective movement will be on hand for the two-day event. Connecticut Judge Charles Gill will speak along with Author Claire Reeves. Gill has been an outspoken advocate for change in the ways the judicial system acts to protect children. Reeves is the founder of M.A.S.A. (Mothers Against Sexual Abuse), a pioneering, national group which has fought for many of the advances, in place today, to protect children from abuse.
Local advocate Vicki Rios-Martinez will also speak to the group about her vision for change. The local mother whose son Junny was murdered by released offender Mark Dean Schwab nearly twenty years ago, advocated many of the reforms which have since been included in legislation like the Jessica Lunsford Act.
She will be presenting the Junny Award, which is sponsored by Protect Our Children, the local charity which publishes the GUARDIAN BREVARD notification newspaper. This year's recipient is Attorney General Bill McCollum, who has been recognized for his leadership in supporting recent cyber safety legislation. Rios-Martinez joined the group's board of directors last year. The board awards the "Junny" each year to the Floridian who has done the most to advance the mission of protecting children from sexual abuse.
Anyone interested in "cutting edge" child safety should attend this national event. To register, contact The Yellow Umbrella at 321- 394 - 7179 or visit their website at www.yellowumbrella.org
An association of local residents committed to protecting children from sexual abuse.
