FBI Agent Wins Award for Software To Find Victims of Child Prostitution

'Extraordinary Innovation' Has 'Saved Lives,' Official Says

A member of the FBI's Manassas field office received a national award Tuesday for his efforts in curbing child prostitution.

The honoree, Special Agent Greg Ryman, created a software program to help identify and locate victims of child prostitution. Since its inception, the software has helped five victims, including a 15-year-old girl who was taken from her Virginia group home in July 2007 and advertised online for sexual purposes.

"This is a pretty extraordinary innovation here," said Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "He saved lives here with this software, and I think it will help save more."

Ryman, who declined to talk to the media, received the award during the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's 14th annual congressional breakfast on Capitol Hill. He was one of six law enforcement members from across the country to be recognized. The other recipients hailed from Tennessee, Nevada, California, Pennsylvania and Minnesota.

Allen said his center received hundreds of nominations. Those honored, he said, have demonstrated "extraordinary work" that resulted in the recovery of missing or exploited children. Each year in the United States, an estimated 800,000 children are reported missing.

"We set aside one day each year to recognize exceptional law enforcement officers who have distinguished themselves by going the extra mile to rescue children and to capture and prosecute criminals who seek to exploit them," Allen said. "Our greatest priority as a society is to protect the innocence of our children. The men and women that we honor . . . share that goal and have made a real difference."

The program Ryman created is an analytical tool that gathers numerous pieces of information to track down and identify missing children. Allen said that once Ryman created the program, it took less than a day to find the 15-year-old girl and the man who was trafficking her. The man arrested pleaded guilty in December and is waiting to be sentenced.

"Greg [Ryman] is a guy with technology skills who has developed a tool to more effectively study information," Allen said. "This is a great example of how law enforcement officers can really accomplish amazing things."

Allen said the software is already in seven FBI field offices. It will also be a useful tool for the Innocence Lost National Initiative, which combines the efforts of the FBI, the center and the Department of Justice Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

The initiative was established in 2003 to address the growing problem of domestic sex trafficking of children in the United States, according to the FBI's Web site. More than 575 children have been rescued, and more than 300 people accused of exploiting children through prostitution have been arrested because of the initiative, the Web site says.