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For the past 21 years, The Filipino Express has provided the Filipino American community the best news, arts and entertainment coverage from around the United States and the Philippines.
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This website includes selected articles from this week's edition of the Filipino Express. Not all the stories published in the printed version appear on this site.
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Incident is the first accusation that the Facebook website was used to contact a minor for predatory reasons
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CHICAGO – Filipino American Michael D. Macalindong, a 25-year-old mortgage broker and a confessed “closeted gay,” was sentenced Tuesday (Oct. 21) to spend 35 years in prison after pleading guilty to federal child pornography that accused him of being the first person in the nation to use the social networking Facebook.com to prey on minors.
Wearing an orange jumpsuit and a pair of eyeglass, Macalindong, a resident of Fox Lake, Illinois, stood quietly as Judge Ronald A. Guzman of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago pronounced in open court that he is sending Macalindong to prison for 420 months or 35 years each for one count of production of child pornography and for one count of child enticement that will run concurrently. He will also be credited for time served. After his release from prison, Macalindong will be under “supervision for the rest of his life.”
Atty. Helene J. Kim, Macalindong’s lawyer from the Federal Defender Program, recommended to Judge Guzman “300 months (25 years), the mandatory minimum” sentence for Macalindong.
But Judge Guzman exercised his discretion under the sentencing guidelines that make Macalindong eligible to “30 years to life” in prison by adding 10 more years of prison time for Macalindong to “be reflective of the severity of the crime.”
Judge Guzman must have been swayed by the letter of the father of the victim that was read in open court by Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward Siskel. The unidentified father asked the judge to impose on Macalindong “the stiffest and longest and hardest penalty,” for stealing the youth and naiveté of his son, who is struggling to go to college.
Mr. Macalindong did not make any statement when asked to do so by Judge Guzman. Macalindong just let his letter to the judge, which is a part of the court record, speak for itself. In his letter to the Judge Guzman, the Chicago-born Macalindong said, “Since Jan. 31, 2007, I have been encarcerated and I’ve had a lot of time to think about what I’ve done. I am truly sorry for my actions. I am sorry not because I got caught but because now I understand the mental pain and suffering that I put these adolescent males through. I hope that my actions don’t have permanent damage on these males.
“Even though I will now be a convicted felon, I am not as bad as a person as some portray me to be. I hope you will show mercy on me when you are sentencing me.”
In a separate letter to Judge Guzman, Macalindong’s estranged mother, Wilma C. Floirendo, 59, a registered nurse, of Sturgis, Michigan, said, “Realizing this, I am attempting now to make you understand that Michael was not totally responsible for what he has done. I am to blame since I never took the time to raise my son the way a mother should.”
Neither Mrs. Floirendo nor Macalindong’s lone surviving sibling, Simeon Macalindong was in court. His father, Renato R. Macalindong, who also had a run-in with the law, died of heart attack in 1999 in Cavite City in the Philippines. While his elder brother, Rewill Macalindong died in a motorcycle accident at the age of 24 in 1998 in Morton Grove, Illinois.
Court records showed that one of Michael Macalindong’s victims, a 15-year-old boy from suburban Evanston, Illinois was lured by Macalindong to his home for sex in Jan. 31, 2007 by using Facebook to pose as a teenage girl. The incident is believed to be the first accusation that the Facebook Web site was used to contact a minor for predatory reasons. The Facebook is a social networking made up of 47,000 networks – individual schools,20companies or regions – that are each independent and closed to non-affiliated users.
A graduate of business at Northern Illinois University, Macalindong was said to have hacked the Facebook’s safeguards by “hijacking” the account of a female high school student in early 2006. Pretending to be a girl, Macalindong told the boy that for him to have sex with her, he had to first have sex with her male friend and have it taped so she could watch. Macalindong was the male friend in the ruse. Macalindong videotaped the first encounter at his apartment in May 2006 and had at least two more meetings with the boy.
When the minor refused to meet again in January, Macalindong threatened to post the videos on the Internet unless he was paid $200, authorities said. At this point, the teen contacted the police, and Macalindong was arrested. Authorities also seized photos and videos with explicit sex images from Macalindong. He was later charged with six counts of production of child pornography, two counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse, one count each of indecent solicitation of a minor and intimidation. Macali ndong pleaded guilty to all counts.
Earlier, when he was 19, he was arrested and convicted in Lake County, Illinois with attempted criminal sexual abuse when he tried to set up date with a minor thru an online chat room. An undercover officer from Villa Park, Illinois police department was posing as a minor when Mr. Macalindong went to meet with the alleged minor and he was arrested. He was charged and had pleaded guilty. He was convicted and sentenced to enter 24 months of supervision and to attend counseling that dealt with “grief issues, his diminished impulse control, anxiety and depressive symptoms and self esteem problems.” But Macalindong was not counseled on the “important component of being related to sex offender” which could have prevented the “Facebook” incident that landed him 35 years in prison, according to court records. (lariosa_jos@sbcglobal.net)
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CHICAGO – A spokesman of Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) said Wednesday (Oct. 21) that “Senator Burr has been willing to work with Senator (Daniel K.) Akaka” on the incorporation of the benefits for the Filipino World War II veterans in Senate Bill 1315, the Veterans Benefit Enhancement Act of 2007.
In an email to this reporter, Chris Walker, spokesman of Senator Burr, said, “Senator Burr has been willing to work with Senator Akaka on this issue from the beginning, and that has not changed.”
A press release issued by Senator Akaka, the U.S. Senate chair of the Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said that Mr. Akaka was responding to comments made by Mr. Burr, Committee’s Ranking Minority Member, that he will reconsider his objection to the inclusion of the benefits to the Filipino veterans if the size of the benefits for Filipino veterans will be “much lesser number and (earmarked for) a much more targeted group of individuals.”
Responding directly to Burr by letter dated Oct. 20, Senator Akaka said: “I am eager to work with you and hear what level of pension and compensation you would be willing to support. The veterans waiting for passage of the equity provisions in S. 1315 are not someone else's veterans – they are our veterans.
“I am willing to negotiate the extent of those benefits with you if you are prepared to recognize them as U.S. veterans.”
Akaka has encouraged immediate discussions of Filipino veterans benefit in hopes of reaching an agreement before the Senate reconvenes as expected following the November elections.
The American Coalition for Filipino Veterans (ACFV) posted a video of Senator Burr’s comments on YouTube in which Burr expresses his willingness to negotiate a limited pension for Filipino World War II veterans. Burr’s comments came in response to a question from 91-year-old WWII Filipino veteran Celestino Almeda, who traveled to attend the public event at Davidson College in North Carolina on October 9. S. 1315 is the Veterans’ Benefits Enhancement Act of 2007, an omnibus veterans’ benefits bill that includes provisions providing recognition and benefits for Filipino veterans of World War II who served under U.S. military command.
S.1315 passed the Senate by a vote of 96-1, and an amended version later passed the House. Chairman Akaka’s motion for a conference between the House and Senate on a final version of the bill was then objected to by Senator Burr. Mr. Burr was lone senator who objected to the creation of Senate-House conference committee for S. 1315 that all but scuttled the benefits of the Filipino veterans.
During an open forum held at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina, Mr. Burr told Mr. Almeda, of Virginia, a member of the American Coalition for Filipino Veterans (ACVF) that “when Sen. (Daniel) Akaka (D-HI), being a good friend, and certainly an advocate for the payment to Filipino veterans, will bring this (S. 1315) back up in January (2009) when we go back to the 111th Congress, I will work with him as best as I can to keep the lower number and if we can come to an agreement on that, we could have an accelerated process to have a bill passed.”
Eric Lachica, ACFV executive director, urged supporters not to quit on S. 1315. Its members are still “hopeful the S.1315 will still be passed during the Nov. 17-19, 2008 lame duck session - just before Thanksgiving!”
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