Court filing says MySpace failed to remove sex offenders

Social networking giant MySpace.com knew about hundreds of registered sex offenders but failed to remove their profiles from the system, alleges the company’s former top contractor tasked with identifying offenders for the company.

John Cardillo is the former CEO of Sentinel Tech Holding Corporation. The company folded in 2010, but before that happened, Cardillo’s company was contracted by MySpace from late 2006 through 2009 to scour the database of accounts to identify registered sex offenders for removal.

But Cardillo now says in a sworn affidavit in a court case that MySpace did not act on hundreds of sex offenders he identified.

“Knowing that I had given MySpace a database that contained many (or possibly all) of the offenders Rambam identified, I cannot explain why they had not been removed at the time of Rambam’s disclosure,” Cardillo says in the affidavit. “Leaving the registered sex offenders with active MySpace profiles, despite being in possession that they were registered sex offenders, seems to indicate a breakdown in MySpace’s internal investigation and reconciliation process.”

In an exclusive interview with Michigan Messenger, Cardillo said that he was never told by MySpace staff what happened to the databases he turned over to them every two weeks. And he said management changes at MySpace.com soured the relationship with Sentinel officials.

“In the early days, it was responsive,” Cardillo said. “But after a management change it became a much different animal.”

“It just seemed like they had cut their staff and they were tired and overworked,” Cardillo said. “They just did not seem to be as cooperative.”

Those tensions resulted in delayed communications and eventually got so bad that Cardillo felt he had to end the relationship with MySpace.com.

Cardillo’s sworn statement is part of a libel lawsuit Steve Rambam, owner of the private investigation firm Pallorium, brought against both Cardillo and MySpace following comments made about him in a San Antonio newspaper story. Rambam had identified hundreds of registered sex offenders from Texas who maintained accounts on the social networking site.

Cardillo said when he received the matches produced by Rambam, he ran them against his own database and found all of the Texas offenders in question. He said he then checked MySpace for accounts, and found them still present on MySpace, even though those offenders had been turned over to the company much earlier.

Texas is not the only state to receive hundreds of identified sex offenders with MySpace accounts. Rambam and his Michigan-based partner Bob Kowalkoski turned over hundreds of names of Michigan Registered Sex Offenders to former Attorney General Mike Cox. In May, they gave Cox’s office information such as MySpace profile printouts, photos from the MySpace account, information from the Michigan Sex Offender Registry and any information available from the Michigan Department of Corrections.

“I think that it’s (the affidavit) roughly the equivalent of Haldermann flipping in the Watergate investigation,” said Rambam. “Cardillo was key player in everything MySpace did to screen out sex offenders. It shows that every allegation we’ve made is absolutely accurate.”

Cardillo says he would not characterize his statements in quite the same manner as Rambam does. Any system will have flaws others can exploit, Cardillo said, and expecting 100 percent effectiveness is “not realistic.”

“There’s not an entity on the planet — virtual, cyber or real — that can be completely locked down and still allow users a pleasant experience,” said Cardillo, who is a former NYC police officer. “You just hope that you get more bad guys.”

Rambam says that after he turned over his information to the Michigan Attorney General’s office, he heard nothing back from them.

“I didn’t hear from them again,” Rambam said. “This was not the limit of what we could have done on this.”

Rambam said the statement shows that while MySpace was publicly saying it was active in searching out sex offenders in its system, and even made an agreement in 2008 — a time when Cardillo and Sentinel was scouring the MySpace system for matches with sex offender registries — with 49 state attorneys general to increase scrutiny, but was doing something differently behind close doors.

While it is unclear if MySpace violated that 2008 AG agreement, Rambam says the statement shows they were “violating the spirit” of the agreement.

“This cries out for an immediate, official, aggressive investigation,” Ramba said. “The entire weight of the state of Michigan should be brought to bare on this.”

The office of Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette did not return calls seeking comment for this story.

MySpace.com declined to address the allegations in the affidavit, instead issuing the following statement to Michigan Messenger:

“Myspace is committed to the safety of our users and our terms of use strictly prohibit registered sex offenders. We actively monitor the site for registered sex offenders and when we receive lists or other notifications of alleged sex offenders from third parties, we initiate an internal review and take the appropriate action.”

While the social networking company, owned by Rupert Murdock’s NewsCorp, brushed off the sworn statement from Cardillo, Michigan lawmakers say they are “shocked” by the statement.

“I’m shocked by it,” said state Sen. Steve Bieda (D-Warren). “You’ve got a corporation that hasn’t followed up except with a public relations response.”

Bieda, who sits on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said the revelation requires an immediate investigation.

“I call on the attorney general’s office to do an investigation on this,” Bieda said. “This is a very severe and potential problem in this state.”

“I will send a letter to our attorney general informing him of this information,” Senate Judiciary Chair Sen. Rick Jones (R-Grand Ledge) .

Jones he will research introducing legislation “to stop sex offenders from using social media.”

Legsilation introduced in 2009 by Republican state Rep. Joe Haveman would have prohibited sex offenders from using social networking programs. The bill died in the House last session without getting a hearing.

Both Rambam and Cardillo agree, the legislation would be an excellent choice for the state.

“Convicted sex offenders should not be on My Space and it appears My Space’s own investigators have documented that, in fact, MySpace is still allowing sexual predators on their site,” says David Holtz, executive director of Progress Michigan. “So why no action by the Michigan Attorney General’s office? How is it that Attorney General Bill Schuette is on duty enough to bust bar owners for video poker games, but is AWOL in protecting our kids from sex offenders?”

The Michigan legislature is currently considering proposals to bring Michigan into compliance with the Adam Walsh Act, which requires several changes to the way the state’s sex offender registry is run. At the same time that some are pushing for more aggressive action against sex offenders, others are hoping to change the definition of a sex offender to remove those who were in consensual “Romeo and Juliet” relationships. Doing so, they say, would allow the punishing of real sexual predators without ruining the lives of those who have never been a threat to anyone.