Lawsuit seeks damages for Racine student used by his math teacher in production of internet child pornography
Also named in lawsuit: Any “Downloaders” of the pornography which contained images of the then 15-year-old
(St. Paul, MN) Joseph T. Clazmer, a math teacher at a Racine ,Wisconsin high school, is facing a lawsuit for depicting a minor child in sexually explicit productions for the purpose of distribution on the internet.
Patrick Noaker, an attorney with St. Paul, Minnesota-based Jeff Anderson and Associates, said today that he has filed the lawsuit in United States District Court—Eastern District of Wisconsin, on behalf of an 18-year-old from Racine. The boy claims he was sexually abused by Clazmer over a three year period beginning when he was 15-years-old and a student in Clazmer’s geometry class.
Noaker said he is employing a little known and little used federal statute which was updated in 2006 to give children the right to sue anyone who produces, distributes, or possesses their pornographic images. The act, called Masha’s Law, is named for a five-year-old adopted from a Russian orphanage by a man who began sexually abusing her the night she arrived. After finally escaping the abuse, eight years later a courageous Masha came forward to tell her story and work to protect other children from abuse.
“A very significant aspect of Masha’s law,” Noaker said, “is that it allows the plaintiff to sue anyone who has downloaded the images produced and distributed by Clazmer, and in this case we list “100 Downloaders” as plaintiffs. While we have yet to identify specific ‘Downloaders” of Clazmer’s work, our investigation is on track, and I want to assure the public that we will find these people and take action against them,” Noaker added.
In March of this year, when Racine police found nude photos of the victim on Clazmer’s computer, he was arrested and subsequently criminally charged with child enticement and possession of child pornography.
Note: Attorney Patrick Noaker at Jeff Anderson & Associates is available for interviews.
Copies of the complaint are available at http://www.andersonadvocates.com/