The UK’s Daily Mail revealed in an exclusive report published Wednesday that it had reviewed court records for several sexual predators, who “infiltrated”, the children’s cable TV network Nickelodeon. Five of the convicted child abusers were also accused of sexual abuse.
Court records reveal that Nickelodeon worked or employed five child molesters, as well as another two accused of pedophilia.
Child safety activists say the channel has been infiltrated with predators, who use the power they gain to get closer to their victims.
In a new HBO film about allegations of child abuse on the channel, two of the offenders are highlighted.
Legal records reveal that the prior involvement of convicted and suspected pedophiles with the channel is much more extensive.
Nickelodeon has improved its security measures since then.
Nickelodeon did not provide any information, but we can still hope.
The report is not afraid to name any names.
Molesters included Jason Handy, who was a Nickelodeon Production Assistant and had sexual contact with an eight-year-old. Ezell Channel was hired at the cable network as a production assistant after being convicted of a child sexual offense but then arrested when he sexually assaulted a teen at the studio.
Marty Weiss was convicted of ‘lewd’ acts with a 12-year-old male client.
Cody Longo was the late star of TeenNick’s 2012 show Hollywood Heights. He was accused in Colorado of sexually assaulting a nine-year-old in 2019. Two years later, he pleaded guilty on a lesser charge.
Apocryphal stories from the Depression tell of a person asking the notorious bank robber Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy Floyd” why he did it. Floyd is said to have replied: “…that’s where the money’s at.” This logic is also applicable to Nickelodeon. One would expect child molestation to attract molesters to a company that employs children. This would require a thorough screening process including at least a background check. One would also expect that the hiring authority would have a rule saying “convicted child molestation and pedophiles do not need to apply.”
This is not often the case.
In his 2014 documentary An Open Secret, Gabe Hoffman, an activist for child safety, exposed child molesters working at Nickelodeon, and other Hollywood Studios.
He told DailyMail.com that the problem persists.
He said that convicted pedophiles are still hired by Hollywood. “Sex offenders were hired by Nickelodeon to work with children, and without changes in the industry, more Hollywood children will be abused.”
This doesn’t seem like a difficult problem to deal with, at least in large part; most of the pedophiles and sexual predators named in this report had previous convictions–something that should have been revealed by the simple expedient of a background check. The majority of these people were likely also on the local sex offender registry. These people should be easy to screen out. Yet, we continue to hear these stories.
