DOCUMENT: Crime

FBI Seizes NAMBLA List During Search

Man/boy membership roster in hands of federal agents

NAMBLA

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NAMBLA Members List

JUNE 14--In a development that should concern boy lovers everywhere, FBI agents last month recovered a “membership list” for the North American Man/Boy Love Association during the course of an investigation of a New York man now facing a child pornography charge.

The NAMBLA list was found during a May 23 search of a Honda Accord owned by Philip Godek, a 57-year-old Long Island resident. Named that day in a U.S. District Court complaint accusing him of possessing illicit images of minors, Godek has been jailed pending trial on the felony count.

The investigation of Godek began when his landlords contacted the FBI to report the discovery of child porn in the Nesconset apartment they had rented to the suspect. The landlords, who entered Godek’s home in response to an alarm, spotted “what appeared to be computer printouts of child pornography images around the apartment,” according to an affidavit sworn by FBI Agent Danielle Messineo.

A subsequent FBI search of the apartment--for which Godek had stopped paying rent months earlier--turned up a “substantial volume of child pornography which appeared to have been printed from Internet websites.” Additionally, seized computers and storage devices were found to contain “numerous images and videos of apparent child pornography.” Two videos cited by Messineo depicted young boys “engaged in oral sex and sexually explicit activity.”

Following his May 23 arrest, Godek waived his Miranda rights and told agents that he had been “collecting pictures of teen boys for a very long time” and preferred “boys aged 14 and older,” according to Messineo’s affidavit. Godek admitted that he masturbated to these images, and “sent such pictures” to others via e-mail.

With Godek’s consent, agents searched his vehicle (in which he had been living) and located the NAMBLA membership list and “articles about the arrests of NAMBLA members.” Investigators also seized “printed child pornography images,” a digital camera containing illicit images, and an “article about methods of enticing boys into sexual activity.”

The FBI affidavit does not detail why Godek was in possession of the membership list, or what, if any, role he has with the secretive organization. NAMBLA claims it is a civil rights group dedicated to ending “the extreme oppression of men and boys in mutually consensual relationships.”

Godek was convicted in 1982 of possessing child porn after he was snared in a sting operation run by the United States Customs Service. Godek met with an undercover agent at a Holiday Inn to discuss selling some of the 11 films and 41 magazines he brought with him to the hotel. “I have mostly only boys,” Godek told the undercover agent. A subsequent search of Godek’s vehicle turned up 11 other magazines containing images of boys under the age of 16 engaged in sexually activity.

Godek was later found guilty at trial of promoting an obscene sexual performance by a child. He was sentenced to five years probation.

If convicted in the current federal child porn case, Godek faces not less than 15 years in prison (and a maximum of 40 years). (5 pages)