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=New Berlin teen accused of using Facebook for sexual blackmail= By Jacqui Seibel and Mike Johnson of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Feb. 5, 2009

Anthony R. Stancl, 18, posing as a female on Facebook, persuaded at least 31 boys to send him naked pictures of themselves and then blackmailed some of the boys into performing sex acts under the threat that the pictures would be released to the rest of the high school, according a criminal complaint. All 31 boys attend New Berlin Eisenhower Middle/High School, said Waukesha County District Attorney Brad Schimel. The sexual assaults occurred in a bathroom at the high school, the school parking lot, a New Berlin Public Library restroom, Valley View Park, Malone Park, Minooka Park and at some of the victims' homes, according to the complaint. At least seven boys, 15 to 17, were forced into performing sex acts, Schimel said. The incidents occurred from spring 2008 until the time of Stancl's arrest in November. Stancl had 300 photos and movie clips on his computer of boys from the school, ages 13 to 19, Schimel said. The investigation into Stancl began after bomb threats on Nov. 12 and Nov. 13 led to the closure of Eisenhower on Nov 14. Officers discovered the threat came from an e-mail sent from a computer at the New Berlin Public Library. It was sent at a time that Stancl was logged onto the computer, according to the criminal complaint. He was arrested on suspicion of making the bomb threats and released because authorities didn't believe he was a threat to the public. Schimel said that while the closing of school because of the bomb scare was costly and inconvenient, the charge "pales in comparison" to what investigators learned later. As police were investigating the bomb threat, one victim came forward, he said. The boy, who was 15 at the time of the assaults, said he was repeatedly forced into sexual acts with Stancl, according to the complaint. Stancl took pictures of every encounter and was able to coerce the boy into repeated sexual acts by telling him the girl he met on Facebook would release the pictures to the rest of the school if they didn't continue to meet, the complaint says. The boy went to his parents and then the police after Stancl asked the boy to get nude pictures of his brother, the complaint says. The boy refused to get his brother involved. Stancl, who has been expelled from school, is accused of following a similar pattern with at least six other boys. More than 300 naked photos and movie clips of New Berlin boys and another 600 professionally made pornographic movies of children were found on the computer, which had been confiscated during the bomb threat investigation, Schimel said. The photos and movie clips were separated into 39 folders that were labeled using the boys' names or screen names.
 * New Berlin** - A former New Berlin Eisenhower student was accused Wednesday of a pattern of manipulation and deception using the social networking site Facebook to coerce male schoolmates into sexual encounters.

More victims possible
Authorities believe there are more victims and are urging them to come forward, New Berlin Police Lt. Mike Glider said. The resulting investigation also turned up computer evidence that Stancl pulled images of females from their Facebook pages and used them to persuade male students to e-mail nude photographs to Stancl, according to the criminal complaint. A criminal complaint charges Stancl with the bomb threat plus repeated sexual assault of same child (at least three violations of first- or second-degree sexual assault), possession of child pornography, second- and third-degree sexual assaults, and five counts of child enticement. The maximum penalty if convicted on all charges is nearly 300 years in prison. Stancl made his initial appearance Wednesday in Waukesha County Circuit Court in Waukesha and was ordered held on $250,000 bail. "In this court's 7 1/2 years on the bench, this is the most horrific complaint the court has ever reviewed," Waukesha Circuit Court Commissioner Laura Florian Lau said. "The defendant is facing 293 years if convicted on these 12 counts. . . . This is a crime allegedly that involved many, many, many victims. The court is extremely concerned as to whether defendant will return to court." As a condition of bail, Stancl cannot have access to any computers, cell phones or Internet-capable devices. He also was ordered not to be on any school grounds, including school parking lots, and is prohibited from entering the New Berlin Public Library. Lau ordered him to have no contact with minors or any of the victims. During Stancl's court appearance, Schimel said that in the days prior to Stancl's arrest, a victim told authorities that he found a note on the windshield of his vehicle, presumably from Stancl. The note said, "I know what you told police." It included statements that "this wasn't going to end up well as a result of that," Schimel said. Stancl's attorney, Craig M. Kuhary, said Stancl has cooperated with authorities during the investigation and is not a flight risk. After the hearing, Kuhary declined to comment, except to say that only one side of the case has been disclosed. A preliminary hearing for Stancl has been scheduled for Feb. 26. On Nov. 14, two bomb threats resulted in the closure of New Berlin Eisenhower. The first threat, "Bomb 11/14/08" was found scrawled on the wall of a boys bathroom on Nov. 12. On Nov. 13, school administrators received an e-mail that stated, "Good luck tomorrow. Boom. It won't be your average one either. It will be one that is manned. Not by me, but by those who follow me. New Berlin Eisenhower High School." Stancl was taken into custody on Nov. 14 by New Berlin police after he admitted he played a role in e-mailing a bomb threat to the school, police said. According to the criminal complaint, he didn't do anything to place a bomb in the school but decided to send the e-mail to "make it a better story," the complaint says. School Superintendent Paul Kreutzer would not discuss details of Stancl's school record, but said, "I would just say that he was not someone who would've drawn attention to himself in a negative manner." Krissy Hashek, 17, a senior at Eisenhower, said students were aware that Stancl was a suspect in the bomb threat but not that investigators were pursuing sex charges, too. "I don't think anyone saw this coming," she said. "A lot of people were just saying, 'Wow, I didn't know anything like this could happen in New Berlin.' "

=Cyber sex case stumps parents=

Adults grapple with implications of New Berlin students duped via computer
By Erin Richards of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Feb. 6, 2009 But it's adults outside school walls who are grappling with the long-term social implications of the incident. Talking to kids about sexuality, body issues and intimate relationships has never been easy, but add in the youth phenomena of social networking and cyber behavior, and many parents have little generational advice to offer. Why would a child send anyone a nude photo of themselves, especially to someone they didn't know? How were so many young boys duped into thinking an online persona was something it wasn't? What should parents do about it? Stancl, 18, was charged by the Waukesha County district attorney Wednesday with posing as a female on Facebook, a social networking site, persuading at least 31 teenage boys from Eisenhower to send him nude photos of themselves and then threatening to release those pictures to the public unless the victims agreed to perform sex acts with him. Joann Rader, a former New Berlin Eisenhower parent who is now raising a granddaughter in second grade, said she thought the entire situation boiled down to parents being out of touch with their kids. "There's a lot of work to be done in New Berlin," Rader said. But according to Mike Domitrz, a public speaker and executive director of the Date Safe Project in Milwaukee, the matter may be more complicated. For many youths, he said, the concept of "private pictures" has been desensitized, in part because of reality television and celebrity culture. But ultimately, he said, it's a self-esteem issue. "They thought they were sending this photo to a girl," Domitrz said. "In their mind, they're looking for a positive response: If I send my picture out, they'll think highly of me and I'll feel more special." Few will dispute that kids are notorious for making rash decisions. But when those decisions are combined with the speed and efficiency of the Internet, disaster can ensue. Domitrz added that adults should pay attention to the fact that when the victims were faced with the threat of having a nude photo become public or the choice to engage in non-consensual sex, they took the latter. "That tells you how little value we've put on intimacy and the body," Domitrz said. New Berlin School District Superintendent Paul Kreutzer echoed that sentiment. "What people need to understand is the power of peer recognition and the social pressure these kids are under," he said. "If someone . . . lures them with heterosexuality and then demands them to engage in homosexuality, the thing that got them to bridge that gap was the threat of social pressure."
 * New Berlin** - Since Anthony Stancl, a former New Berlin Eisenhower High School student, was charged Wednesday with using Facebook to sexually assault peers, rumors have been difficult to subdue at the high school.

Looser boundaries
Fred Lane, a nationally recognized attorney and author who focuses on privacy issues in light of emerging technology, said the Internet has greatly expanded traditional sexual boundaries. "There's a growing willingness to talk about sexual issues, to share revealing photos of themselves," Lane said. "When you talk to kids about this, they often say that because it's so easy, it doesn't seem like a problem." But such relaxed attitudes can have consequences. "Information wants to be free," Lane said. "Once you digitize anything, there's an organic impulse for that information to be transmitted." That's especially true with cell phone technology, which has seen so much abuse from teenagers sending around revealing photos that //sexting// has become a common term among law enforcement. Within the last year, a 17-year-old La Crosse County boy was charged with felony possession of child pornography on accusations of posting a cell phone picture of his nude ex-girlfriend on MySpace. In Chippewa Falls, a teenage boy received a felony count on accusations of showing classmates cell phone photos of nude females, including his ex-girlfriend. Two 17-year-old boys from Hudson recently received misdemeanors in similar incidents. So what can parents do? Across the board, experts say, parents need to talk to their children about their online activities, early and often. Domitrz says the conversations should start with kids as young as 8, 9 and 10 and continue through high school. Other experts recommend never allowing a child to have a personal computer in his or her bedroom, where activities are more difficult to monitor. Lane warns against cutting kids off from social networks completely because the tools have become a vital part of their personal development. What parents can do, he said, is engage their child: Have them help you make a Facebook page and a MySpace page. And then, Lane added, make sure they "friend" you. = = =Waukesha County DA wants to keep Facebook victims off the stand= By Jacqui Seibel of the Journal Sentinel Posted: Feb. 7, 2009

The Waukesha County district attorney said Friday that he hopes to prosecute a former New Berlin high school student accused of sexually assaulting students in an Internet scam without having to call victim witnesses. "For child victims of sexual abuse, we have to find a way so they don't have to relive this in the courtroom," District Attorney Brad Schimel said. Anthony Stancl, 18, is accused of posing as a female on the social networking site Facebook and persuading at least 31 boys to send naked pictures of themselves. Stancl blackmailed some boys into performing sex acts under the threat that the pictures would be released to the rest of the high school, according a criminal complaint. Authorities think there are more victims, but no new victims have come forward saying Stancl victimized them, Schimel and New Berlin police said Friday. All 31 boys attend New Berlin Eisenhower Middle and High School, Schimel has said. Schimel said he is drafting a letter to send to the victims' parents that will help them understand the process, but he wants them to know that it is his intent to keep the victims off the stand in court. Schimel said he thinks there's enough evidence on Stancl's computer that most victims, ages 13 to 19, would never have to see a courtroom. About 300 photos and movie clips of the boys were found on Stancl's computer, the complaint says. Stancl, who, according to school information released Friday, was an honor student and participant in Academic Decathlon at Eisenhower, is being held in the Waukesha County Jail on $250,000 bail. The sexual assaults occurred in 2008 in a bathroom at the high school, the school parking lot, a New Berlin Public Library restroom, parks and at some of the victims' homes, according to the criminal complaint. At least seven boys, 15 to 17, were forced into performing sex acts, the complaint says. Police learned of Stancl's alleged activities after he was accused in a bomb threat that closed Eisenhower and one victim came forward to police. Stancl, who was expelled after the bomb scare, is charged with a bomb threat, plus repeated sexual assault of same child (at least three violations of first- or second-degree sexual assault), possession of child pornography, second- and third-degree sexual assaults and five counts of child enticement. If convicted, Stancl faces a maximum penalty of nearly 300 years in prison. A preliminary hearing for Stancl has been scheduled for Feb. 26.

Information released
In response to public record requests from news media outlets, the New Berlin School District released limited personal information Friday about Stancl. The reports indicate Stancl was born in Lima, Peru, in 1990, and he was an honor roll student who participated in Academic Decathlon. "We were very much limited in what we could hand out per our legal counsel," New Berlin Assistant Superintendent Joe Garza said. "We have to protect our students' privacy rights." Garza confirmed that students were taking advantage of the district's counseling services. He also said the district is working with the New Berlin Police Department to hold a joint meeting next week that could serve as a forum for parents and community members. "We want families and community members to become more informed on some of these issues that have popped up recently, and we hope to talk about it so that this doesn't happen again," Garza said