Jan 07, 2011

Milford case led to child sex arrest in Netherlands

By Brian Benson/Daily News staff Milford Daily News

MILFORD — An investigation into a Milford man facing child
pornography charges has led to the arrest of three people in the
Netherlands for child sex offenses.

Robert A. Diduca, 46, of 23 Hancock St., was arrested in November
after investigators said they found 10,000 pictures of young children
on a computer memory card.

Diduca was scheduled to appear in Milford District Court today, but at
his lawyer's request his case was continued to Feb. 24.

State and federal investigators traced the origin of some of the photos
to the Netherlands, prompting Dutch officials to arrest a 27-year-old
day care worker, according to a press release from U.S. Immigration
and Customs Enforcement that said the images came from a Boston-
area child sexual exploitation investigation.

Timothy J. Connolly, a spokesmen for Worcester District Attorney
Joseph D. Early Jr.'s office, said the release was referring to Diduca's
case.

Last month, a national TV station in the Netherlands ran a story
seeking the public's help in identifying a 2-year-old victim. Police
immediately received a call identifying the child.

Later that day, Dutch police arrested the suspect, who had babysat the
victim and had worked at least two day care centers in Amsterdam,
according to authorities.

The suspect has since confessed to dozens of sex crimes, and officials
there told dozens of parents last month that the suspect has either
confessed to abusing their children or was thought to have abused
them.

Police also arrested the suspect's 37-year-old partner on suspicion of
possession of child pornography and a 39-year-old employee of one of

the day care centers for allegedly attempting an indecent online chat.

"Law enforcement agencies will continue to work tirelessly across
jurisdictions and national boundaries to protect children anywhere in
the world," Bruce M. Foucart, an agent in ICE's Boston office, said in a
statement last month. "I commend the collaboration of our agents and
our law enforcement partners who were able to track down this child
predator."

The case has drawn widespread media attention in the Netherlands,
and several Dutch journalists said they were planning to come to
Diduca's pretrial conference.

That conference, originally scheduled for today in Milford District
Court, was postponed because Diduca had a family emergency,
Connolly said.

Connolly said Diduca's attorney, Richard Sweeney, requested the
postponement. Sweeney did not return a message yesterday.

"This is a shocking case," Milford Police Chief Thomas O'Loughlin
said. "You wonder who the kids in the pictures are." He said
investigators don't believe the pictures were of Diduca's family or
neighbors. "But it's still someone's kids."

O'Loughlin assigned two detectives to the investigation to work the
case periodically for about 14 months.

The detectives would follow Diduca in unmarked cars at different
times, such as from work to home, when authorities suspected he
was going to be online, he said. "We monitored where he went so he
couldn't later claim he was at work or out with his buddies," O'Loughlin
said.

Diduca was arrested at the Framingham Sheraton, where he worked
as a manager.

Diduca, who is facing two counts of possession of child pornography
and one count of dissemination of child pornography, posted $5,000
bail after his arraignment in November. He was required to wear an
electronic monitoring bracelet and have no access to the Internet.