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Found at Church: The Jose Saez Jr. Case · The Occult Rejects

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  Speaker 1: You see something's going to happen. What's going to happen?
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  Speaker 1: What I welcome back to the occult rejects today. This
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  Speaker 1: is not a story about faith. It is a story
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  Speaker 1: about camouflage. It is a story about how power can
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  Speaker 1: hide inside familiarity, how trust can become access and how
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  Speaker 1: some of the most disturbing crimes in the public record
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  Speaker 1: do not always come wearing the face people expect. They
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  Speaker 1: do not always arrive as the obvious stranger, the outsider
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  Speaker 1: to figure everyone was worn to fear. Sometimes they arrive
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  Speaker 1: with a title, a role, a respected voice, a familiar building,
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  Speaker 1: a reputation that tells people to lower their guard before
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  Speaker 1: they ever think to ask the wrong questions. Because in
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  Speaker 1: the public record, jose Siez Jr. Was not introduced to
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  Speaker 1: the public as a drifter, a fugitive, or a fearless
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  Speaker 1: online predator. He was identified by federal authorities as a
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  Speaker 1: pastor in Brentwood, Long Island. And that is why this
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  Speaker 1: story lands as hard as it does. Because this case
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  Speaker 1: appears in public record to sit at the intersection of
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  Speaker 1: two kinds of trust. People are often taught not to
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  Speaker 1: question too quickly the trust attached to religious authority, and
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  Speaker 1: the false intimacy created by private digital communication. So today
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  Speaker 1: we are going to walk through this carefully, not as gossip,
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  Speaker 1: not as spectacle, and not as a shock for the
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  Speaker 1: sake of shock. We are going to walk through it
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  Speaker 1: like a case file. Who was he in public, How
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  Speaker 1: the case began, what federal authority said he did, how
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  Speaker 1: the digital side allegedly worked, Why the church setting matters
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  Speaker 1: so much, how the case widened, what the guilty plea changed,
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  Speaker 1: and why this story is really about something bigger than
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  Speaker 1: one man, the way institutions can become cover when evil
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  Speaker 1: learns how to wear respectability. The first thing that matters
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  Speaker 1: here is the role. According to the FBI's victim Information notice,
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  Speaker 1: jose Siaz was the pastor at a church at two
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  Speaker 1: forty five Second Avenue in Brentwood. Federal authorities themselves highlighted
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  Speaker 1: that fact. They did not treat it like a background detail.
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  Speaker 1: They treated it as central. And that matters because a
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  Speaker 1: pastor does not simply occupy a job title. A pastor
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  Speaker 1: occupies moral space. Families lower their guard around that role.
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  Speaker 1: Children are taught to defer to it. Congregates are inclined
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  Speaker 1: to assume that the person preaching counseling, blessing, advising, and
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  Speaker 1: speaking the language of righteousness. Congregates are inclined to assume
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  Speaker 1: that the person preaching, counseling, blessing, advising, and speaking the
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  Speaker 1: language of righteousness is at least trying to live inside
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  Speaker 1: that language. That social position does real work. It creates confidence,
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  Speaker 1: it creates access, It makes suspicion feel almost offensive, And
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  Speaker 1: when a trusted role becomes part of the hiding place,
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  Speaker 1: the betrayal is no longer only personal, it becomes structural.
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  Speaker 1: That is what makes a case like this feel so corrosive,
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  Speaker 1: not only what one man is accused of or admits
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  Speaker 1: to doing, but the possibility that the role itself helped
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  Speaker 1: create the conditions that made the harm easier to conceal.
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  Speaker 1: The public case began to break open on September twenty eighth,
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. That day, the FBI announced that, after
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  Speaker 1: receiving an online tip reporting an individual being sexually active
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  Speaker 1: with minor children, the Long Island Child Exploitation Task executed
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  Speaker 1: a search warrant at Size's home in Brentwood. The FBI
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  Speaker 1: said agents conducted a cursory review of his cell phone
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  Speaker 1: and found numerous videos containing child sex abuse material, he
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  Speaker 1: was arrested and charged. That detail matters for more than
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  Speaker 1: one reason. First, the case did not begin as rumor,
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  Speaker 1: church gossip, or vague accusation. It began with a tip,
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  Speaker 1: a warrant, a device search, and a federal arrest. Second,
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  Speaker 1: from the first public moment, the phone mattered. The digital
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  Speaker 1: side of the case was not an afterthought. It was
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  Speaker 1: there from the beginning. The case did not become digital later.
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  Speaker 1: It was digital from the start. Local reporting added early
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  Speaker 1: shape News twelve reported that investigated said the phone contained
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  Speaker 1: fifteen videos and that the victim identified at that stage
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  Speaker 1: was a sixteen year old male. Those details should be
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  Speaker 1: attributed carefully as reporting stage details rather than treated as
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  Speaker 1: the complete final federal record, but they help show how
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  Speaker 1: the public first encountered the case. Those details should be
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  Speaker 1: attributed carefully as reporting stage details, rather than treated as
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  Speaker 1: the complete final federal record. But they help show how
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  Speaker 1: the public first encountered the case. And this is where
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  Speaker 1: the split begins. The public man and the private man,
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  Speaker 1: the man in the pulpit and the man on the phone,
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  Speaker 1: the trusted figure and the concealed figure behind the screen.
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  Speaker 1: Because once a phone is opened, once chats are polled,
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  Speaker 1: once accounts are traced, Once messages are received, the public
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  Speaker 1: self and the digital self begin to separate the respectable
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  Speaker 1: life and the hidden life stop matching. A lot of
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  Speaker 1: people hear words like complaint, indictment, superseding indictment, and guilty
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  Speaker 1: plea as though they all mean the same thing. They
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  Speaker 1: do not. The complaint is the first public break. It
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  Speaker 1: means law enforcement believes there is enough evidence to arrest
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  Speaker 1: and charge. The indictment means a grand jury has formally
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  Speaker 1: approved charges and the machinery of federal prosecution is fully engaged.
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  Speaker 1: A superseding indictment usually means the case has expanded, whether
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  Speaker 1: through additional evidence, added counts, newly identified victims, or a
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  Speaker 1: wider theory of what happened. And a guilty plea changes
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  Speaker 1: the center of gravity of the entire story. Before a plea,
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  Speaker 1: the case lives in the language of allegation, accusation, indictment,
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  Speaker 1: and reporting. After a plea, the case shifts into admitted
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  Speaker 1: criminal responsibility that matters here. On December sixth, twenty twenty three,
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  Speaker 1: the Eastern District of New York announced that Sias would
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  Speaker 1: be arraigned on charges including sexual exploitation of children, coercion
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  Speaker 1: and enticement of children, distribution of child pornography, and possession
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  Speaker 1: of child pornography. On December sixth, twenty twenty three, the
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  Speaker 1: Eastern District of New York announced that Siaz would be
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  Speaker 1: arraigned on charges including sexual exploitation of children, coercion and
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  Speaker 1: enticement of children, distribution of child pornography, and possession of
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  Speaker 1: child pornography. DJ also said he had been arrested on
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  Speaker 1: September twenty eighth and detained pending trial that moved from
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  Speaker 1: the arrest to indictment matters and arrest begins the public drama.
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  Speaker 1: An indictment tells you the case is not a one
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  Speaker 1: day explosion that may disappear by the next news cycle.
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  Speaker 1: It tells you the federal system has taken hold of it.
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  Speaker 1: And then the case widened. On April tenth, twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 1: News twelve reported that Sias was arraigned after a grand
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  Speaker 1: jury returned a twelve count superseding indictment, and that the
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  Speaker 1: government had added four more alleged victims. Local reporting also
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  Speaker 1: described him at the point as already accused of exploiting
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  Speaker 1: dozens of children. That number should be attributed carefully as
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  Speaker 1: local reporting, but it shows the direction of the case.
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  Speaker 1: Public picture was widening. That is another reason cases like
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  Speaker 1: this deserve long form treatment instead of headline treatment. The
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  Speaker 1: first public version is rarely the final map. The map
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  Speaker 1: gets larger when devices are searched. It gets larger when
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  Speaker 1: it counts a traced It gets larger when investigators stop
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  Speaker 1: asking only what happened and start asking who else may
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  Speaker 1: still be out there. One of the clearest public windows
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  Speaker 1: into the alleged method comes from the FBI's Victim Information page.
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  Speaker 1: The bureau said Sias may have contacted victims either in
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  Speaker 1: person or online. It said he allegedly portrayed himself as
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  Speaker 1: a male on some accounts and is a female on others,
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  Speaker 1: used faked photographs, and primarily targeted boys. Investigators publicly identified
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  Speaker 1: accounts including Snapchat, Telegram, and Kick and said that on
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  Speaker 1: Kick he allegedly pretended to be a female of varying ages.
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  Speaker 1: That matters because it reveals something deeper than access. It
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  Speaker 1: reveals adaptation. This is not just a story of physical opportunity.
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  Speaker 1: It is also in the public record a story. It
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  Speaker 1: is also in the public record a story of identity. Switching, deception,
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  Speaker 1: role splitting, and digital shape shifting. One face in public,
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  Speaker 1: another face online, one identity in church, another in the
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  Speaker 1: chat window. One role that inspires trust, another that lowest
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  Speaker 1: suspicion by pretending to be someone else. Predators do not
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  Speaker 1: only hide by disappearing, Sometimes they hide by multiplying. One
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  Speaker 1: of the strongest patterns in this case is that the
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  Speaker 1: online dimension was not secondary, it was foundational. The FBI
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  Speaker 1: said the case began with an online tip. The initial
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  Speaker 1: search turned up material on the cell phone. DOJ later
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  Speaker 1: said Sia's allegedly used an encrypted messaging service to engage
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  Speaker 1: in sexually explicit conversations with miners and with an undercover
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  Speaker 1: law enforcement officer in August of twenty twenty three. According
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  Speaker 1: to DOJ, he admitted in those conversations that he had
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  Speaker 1: sexually abused young children, said his sweet spot was children
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  Speaker 1: eleven to fifteen years old, and said he found younger
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  Speaker 1: victims at church. That line is the spine of the
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  Speaker 1: entire episode, because if the government's account is accurate, then
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  Speaker 1: the church was not merely the place where he happened
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  Speaker 1: to work while unrelated crimes occurred elsewhere. In the prosecution's version,
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  Speaker 1: of the case, church life itself was discussed as a
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  Speaker 1: source of access. This is not a side note, This
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  Speaker 1: is not a decorative detail. This is the central horror
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  Speaker 1: of the story. The old institution and the new tool
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  Speaker 1: working together, the trusted role offline and the deceptive identity online,
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  Speaker 1: the authority of the pulpit, and the secrecy of the
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  Speaker 1: encrypted chat. There is a reason federal authorities themselves emphasized
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  Speaker 1: the religion role in this case. Because a church is
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  Speaker 1: supposed to signal care, a pastor is supposed to signal
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  Speaker 1: moral responsibility. A familiar face in a religious setting is
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  Speaker 1: supposed to quiet the alarm system in the human mind.
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  Speaker 1: This is why the setting matters, not because this is
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  Speaker 1: a story about theology, because it is a story about cover.
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  Speaker 1: When people imagine danger, they often imagine the outsider, the stranger,
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  Speaker 1: the intruder, the suspicious figure no one recognizes. But one
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  Speaker 1: of the darker truths in this case like this, is
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  Speaker 1: that the danger can arrive already approved by the community,
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  Speaker 1: already known, already welcomed, already trusted, already wearing a title
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  Speaker 1: that makes suspicion harder to voice. They do not want
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  Speaker 1: to believe that the person preaching, counseling, or advising could
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  Speaker 1: also be dangerous. They fear scandal, the fear being wrong,
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  Speaker 1: the fear accusing the wrong person. They fear shattering something familiar.
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  Speaker 1: And that is exactly why predatory camouflage can work. Respectability
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  Speaker 1: is not just image, It is insulation. It buys time,
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  Speaker 1: it lowers suspicion, and narrows what people are willing to imagine,
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  Speaker 1: and it can make even obvious warning signs feel unbelievable
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  Speaker 1: until law enforcement breaks the case open from the outside.
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  Speaker 1: That is why the story matters beyond one defendant, because
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  Speaker 1: it is not only about what was allegedly done or admitted.
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  Speaker 1: It is about the social conditions that can make people
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  Speaker 1: slow to see it. As a case developed, the public
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  Speaker 1: record suggest that investigators believe the known allegations did not
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  Speaker 1: capture the full scope. The FBI published a victim information
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  Speaker 1: notice seeking the public's help and identifying additional victims under
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  Speaker 1: eighteen who may have been asked by Sayez to produce
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  Speaker 1: or view sexually graphic images or engaged in sexual conduct.
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  Speaker 1: That alone is significant. Authorities do not usually make a
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  Speaker 1: public victim identification push unless the evidence suggests the known
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  Speaker 1: complainants may not be the whole picture, and that matters
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  Speaker 1: because cases like this often have a long tail. The
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  Speaker 1: public may hear about the arrest one day, but the
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  Speaker 1: full human map of harm may continue unfolding long after
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  Speaker 1: the first headline fades. There may be people who stayed quiet,
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  Speaker 1: people who were afraid, people who thought they would not
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  Speaker 1: be believed, people who did not yet have language for
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  Speaker 1: what had happened, and people who had not yet come
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  Speaker 1: forward when the first charges were filed. That is why
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  Speaker 1: a case expanding is not just a legal detail, it
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  Speaker 1: is a human one. Another revealing layer in the reporting
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  Speaker 1: was the question of detention. DOJ said Sias was detained
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  Speaker 1: pending trial. Local reporting also described disputes over released conditions,
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  Speaker 1: including defense arguments referencing in a aggressive form of multiple
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  Speaker 1: sclerosis and prosecution concern over whether release would adequately protect
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  Speaker 1: the public. Even without making that a major part of
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  Speaker 1: the episode, it is useful because detention fights tell you
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  Speaker 1: something about how the court is thinking about danger, access,
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  Speaker 1: and risk. In cases involving exploitation of minors, that question
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  Speaker 1: matters not only what happened before rest, but whether authorities
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  Speaker 1: believe further harm could be prevented outside custody or only
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  Speaker 1: by keeping the defendant detained. On March eleventh, twenty twenty five,
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  Speaker 1: the case crossed the most important line in the public record.
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  Speaker 1: That was the day DOJ announced that Jose Says Junior
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  Speaker 1: pleaded guilty in federal court and Central isolod to sexual
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  Speaker 1: exploitation of a child before US District Judge Joann m Azrak.
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  Speaker 1: DOJ said he faced a mandatory minimum of fifteen years
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  Speaker 1: and up to thirty years in prison. That plea changes
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  Speaker 1: everything about how the story is told. Before the plea,
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  Speaker 1: the case's allegation, indictment, accusation, and reported scope. After the plea,
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  Speaker 1: the center of gravity becomes admitted criminal responsibility on a
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  Speaker 1: federal child exploitation offense. This does not answer every question.
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  Speaker 1: It does not identify every victim. It does not explain
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  Speaker 1: every failure around the case. It does not tell us everything.
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  Speaker 1: Here is what appears rock solid in the official public record.
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  Speaker 1: There was an FBI arrest on September twenty eighth, twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty three, after an online tip and a search of
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  Speaker 1: Saz's home and phone. There was a federal indictment announced
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  Speaker 1: in December sixth, twenty twenty three. The FBI publicly sought
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  Speaker 1: additional victims and identified specific social media accounts tied to
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  Speaker 1: the investigation. On March eleventh, twenty twenty five, DOJ announced
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: that Sayaz pleaded guilty to sexual exploitation of a child
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  Speaker 1: in phase fifteen to thirty years in prison. Here is
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  Speaker 1: what appears in local reporting and should be labeled that way.
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  Speaker 1: The report that fifteen videos were found on the phone
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  Speaker 1: in the early phase, the report that his sixteen year
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  Speaker 1: old male was the initially identified victim in early coverage,
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  Speaker 1: the April twenty twenty four report that a twelve counts
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  Speaker 1: superseding indictment added four more alleged victims, and local descriptions
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  Speaker 1: that he had already been accused of exploiting dozens of children.
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  Speaker 1: And so, what are we really looking at? Not simply
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  Speaker 1: a past or charged in a terrible case, Not simply
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  Speaker 1: another headline about online exploitation, not simply a story about
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  Speaker 1: one defendant doing monstrous things in secret. What we are
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  Speaker 1: looking at in the public record is a pattern, a
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  Speaker 1: trusted religious role, a federal case triggered by an online tip,
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  Speaker 1: a phone and device evidence at the center from the
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  Speaker 1: beginning allegations involving exploitation both in person and online, multiple
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  Speaker 1: digital identities, a public victim identification effort by the FBI,
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  Speaker 1: a superseding indictment that widened the case, and finally a
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  Speaker 1: guilty plea that anchored the case in admitted criminal responsibility.
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  Speaker 1: And that paradne tells us something bigger than the case itself.
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  Speaker 1: It tells us that the danger does not always announce
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  Speaker 1: itself as danger. Sometimes it arrives inside of structure people
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  Speaker 1: have been taught to trust. Sometimes it speaks softly, Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: it wears a moral title. Sometimes it stands in a
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  Speaker 1: familiar building and uses one of the oldest institutions in
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  Speaker 1: the world as cover, while using some of the newest
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  Speaker 1: tools in the world as weapons. That is the deeper
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: terror in a case like this, not only what was done,
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  Speaker 1: but how the setting may have helped conceal it. Not
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  Speaker 1: only the act, but the camouflage, not only the defendant,
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  Speaker 1: but the system of trust around him. So when we
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: step back from the Jose Sayas Junior case, we are
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  Speaker 1: not just looking at a criminal prosecution. We are looking
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  Speaker 1: at a warning, a warning that trust is not the
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  Speaker 1: same thing as safety, a warning that institutions can shelter
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  Speaker 1: good people, but they can also shield predators if defense
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  Speaker 1: becomes udonomic. A warning that digital deception does not replace
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  Speaker 1: old fashioned abuse of authority, it amplifies it. A warning
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  Speaker 1: that communities cannot afford to treat titles, buildings, or spiritual
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  Speaker 1: language as proof of innocence. And a warning that when
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  Speaker 1: harm hides behind respectability, the first battle is often not
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  Speaker 1: proving the crime. It is convincing the people that the
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  Speaker 1: mask was ever a mask at all. Maybe that is
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  Speaker 1: the hardest truth in the whole story. The mask is
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  Speaker 1: not always worn to full strangers. Sometimes it is worn
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  Speaker 1: in front of the people who already trusted you, already
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  Speaker 1: welcomed you, already believe you, already let you win. And
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  Speaker 1: sometimes the most dangerous person in the room is the
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  Speaker 1: one in the room who is built to trust. And
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  Speaker 1: that's the end of another occult rejects And until the
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  Speaker 1: next one, everybody be well.