A former U.S. Customs and Border Protection officer from Minnetonka was sentenced Thursday to nearly six years in federal prison for uploading child pornography to the Kik app in 2022.

Anthony John Crowley (Courtesy of the Sherburne County Sheriff’s Office)

Anthony John Crowley, 52, had pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court in St. Paul to one count of distribution of child pornography, admitting he used the messaging app to upload images of a minor less than 12 years old engaged in sexually explicit conduct in August 2022.

Judge Laura Provinzino gave Crowley the top of sentencing guideline range — 71 months — and 10 years of supervised release.

She said Crowley “had earned his position of trust” after a 23-year career in federal law enforcement. “You wore the badge, people trusted you,” she said. “You knew what you did was wrong.”

Crowley was charged and arrested in June. As part of a September plea agreement, the prosecution agreed to dismiss an indictment charging him with two counts of possessing child pornography.

Court documents said the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force tipped off the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in 2022 that someone was using Kik to upload images of child pornography. The account was linked to a phone number and email address belonging to Crowley, a customs and border officer.

Law enforcement obtained a search warrant for Crowley’s home and seized his electronic devices, which contained images of child pornography and “child erotica” stories, according to prosecutors.

“Anthony Crowley’s crimes against children are a disgrace,” former acting U.S. Attorney for Minnesota Joseph Thompson said after the guilty plea. “In the last few months, we have seen a rash of law enforcement officers, public officials, and others in positions of trust abusing children. I have zero tolerance for this betrayal.”

Other officers charged

Crowley was among three Minnesota law enforcement officers charged federally for alleged sex crimes in just over a month’s time.

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Four days before Crowley was charged, a special agent with Homeland Security, Timothy Ryan Gregg, 52, of Eagan, was charged with producing child sexual abuse material of a 17-year-old girl after authorities say images and videos of the two engaged in sexual activity were found on her cellphone on May 29. Gregg has pleaded guilty to the sole count of transportation of visual depictions of a minor engaging in sexual conduct. A sentencing date has not been scheduled.

A month earlier, Minnesota state trooper Jeremy Francis Plonski, 30, of Shakopee was charged with production of child pornography. He pleaded guilty to the charge Oct. 8, admitting to repeatedly sexually assaulting a toddler girl while recording the abuse and then sharing the videos with someone he met through the Telegram app. Under a plea agreement, Plonski faces between 23 and 28 years in prison at sentencing, which has not been scheduled.

By REGINA GARCIA CANO

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Venezuela’s legislature on Thursday approved opening the nation’s oil sector to privatization, reversing a tenet of the self-proclaimed socialist movement that has ruled the country for more than two decades.

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The National Assembly approved the overhaul of the energy industry law less than a month after the brazen seizure of then-President Nicolás Maduro in a U.S. military attack in Venezuela’s capital.

The bill now awaits the signature of acting President Delcy Rodríguez, who proposed the changes in the days after U.S. President Donald Trump said his administration would take control of Venezuela’s oil exports and revitalize the ailing industry by luring foreign investment.

The legislation promises to give private companies control over the production and sale of oil and allow for independent arbitration of disputes.

Rodríguez’s government expects the changes to serve as assurances for major U.S. oil companies that have so far hesitated about returning to the volatile country. Some of those companies lost investments when the ruling party enacted the existing law two decades ago to favor Venezuela’s state-run oil company, Petróleos de Venezuela SA, or PDVSA.

The revised law would modify extraction taxes, setting a royalty cap rate of 30% and allowing the executive branch to set percentages for every project based on capital investment needs, competitiveness and other factors.

It also removes the mandate for disputes to be settled only in Venezuelan courts, which are controlled by the ruling party. Foreign investors have long viewed the involvement of independent courts as crucial to guard against future expropriation.

Ruling-party lawmaker Orlando Camacho, head of the assembly’s oil committee, said the reform “will change the country’s economy.”

Meanwhile, opposition lawmaker Antonio Ecarri urged the assembly to add transparency and accountability provisions to the law, including the creation of a website to make funding and other information public. He noted that the current lack of oversight has led to systemic corruption and argued that these provisions can also be considered judicial guarantees.

Those guarantees are among the key changes foreign investors are looking for as they weigh entering the Venezuelan market.

“Let the light shine on in the oil industry,” Ecarri said.

Oil workers dressed in red jumpsuits and hard hats celebrated the bill’s approval, waving a Venezuelan flag inside the legislative palace and then joining lawmakers to a demonstration with ruling-party supporters.

The law was last altered two decades ago as Maduro’s mentor and predecessor, the late Hugo Chávez, made heavy state control over the oil industry a pillar of his socialist-inspired revolution.

In the early years of his tenure, a massive windfall in petrodollars thanks to record-high global oil prices turned PDVSA into the main source of government revenue and the backbone of Venezuela’s economy.

Chávez’s 2006 changes to the hydrocarbons law required PDVSA to be the principal stakeholder in all major oil projects.

In tearing up the contracts that foreign companies signed in the 1990s, Chávez nationalized huge assets belonging to American and other Western firms that refused to comply, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. They are still waiting to receive billions of dollars in arbitration awards.

From those heady days of lavish state spending, PDVSA’s fortunes turned — along with the country’s — as oil prices dropped and government mismanagement eroded profits and hurt production, first under Chávez, then Maduro.

The nation home to the world’s biggest proven crude reserves underwent a dire economic crisis that drove over 7 million Venezuelans to flee since 2014. Sanctions imposed by successive U.S. administrations further crippled the oil industry.

Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america

By DAVID FISCHER

MIAMI (AP) — Detainees have been pepper-sprayed on at least two occasions at a Florida immigration detention center dubbed “Deportation Depot” since it opened this past September.

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The Florida Division of Emergency Management confirmed Thursday that the most recent incident at the former Baker Correctional Institution in northeast Florida occurred on Christmas Eve.

“Several detainees refused orders to return to their bunks and began advancing on staff,” officials said in a statement. “One detainee became violent, striking an officer, so chemical agents were released to restore safety to detainees and guards.”

The confrontation came nearly two months after an Oct. 29 incident, when detainees attempted to barricade themselves inside their housing unit while inciting violence and causing significant damage, officials said. Guards eventually used pepper spray to regain control. No injuries were reported, and everyone involved was medically cleared in an abundance of caution, officials said.

The northeast Florida facility is the second immigration detention center opened by the state of Florida, following one in the Florida Everglades earlier last summer. The state is awaiting approval from federal officials to open a third immigration detention center in the Florida Panhandle and is also looking into a potential fourth detention facility in South Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis announced earlier this month.

DeSantis has said that there had been 10,000 arrests of people in the U.S. illegally in Florida during the past year through a state initiative with federal law enforcement, and that local law enforcement had made an additional 10,000 arrests for a total of 20,000 arrests. Under the state initiative, 63% of those arrested had a criminal arrest or conviction, DeSantis said.

Florida has led other states in constructing facilities to support President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, with DeSantis saying the Trump administration needs the additional capacity to hold and deport more immigrants. The Trump administration has trumpeted the Republican governors’ efforts to expand their immigration detention capacity, calling Florida’s partnership a model for other state-run holding facilities.

Attorneys for detainees at the Everglades facility have called the conditions deplorable, writing in court documents that rainwater floods their tents and officers go cell-to-cell pressuring detainees to sign voluntary removal orders before they’re allowed to consult their attorneys.

Three federal lawsuits in Florida are challenging practices at the Everglades facility.

In one lawsuit, detainees are asking for the facility to be closed since immigration is a federal issue, and Florida agencies and private contractors hired by the state have no authority to operate it under federal law. In a second lawsuit, detainees were seeking a ruling that would ensure that they have access to confidential communications with their attorneys.

In the third lawsuit, a federal judge in Miami last summer ordered the Everglades facility to wind down operations over two months because officials had failed to do a review of the detention center’s environmental impact. But an appellate court panel put that decision on hold for the time being, allowing the facility to stay open.

By DAVID KLEPPER

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Army general tapped to lead the U.S. National Security Agency assured lawmakers Thursday that he will follow the Constitution and the law when it comes to using the NSA’s powerful surveillance tools.

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Lt. Gen. Joshua Rudd, if confirmed by the Senate, would also run the Pentagon’s Cyber Command, giving him a critical role in the nation’s offensive and defensive cyber operations.

The NSA has been without a permanent director since President Donald Trump fired Gen. Tim Haugh last year. The questions at Rudd’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee reflected concerns about whether Trump has politicized the use of federal law enforcement and security programs to target his critics and political opponents.

Rudd has held senior roles in Army special forces, has served in Iraq and Afghanistan and is now the deputy commander of the Indo-Pacific Command. He told senators that the NSA’s mission is critical to protecting the lives of service members and the success of their missions while also keeping the homeland safe from espionage and digital threats.

Rudd assured skeptical Democrats that he would follow the law if asked to turn the NSA’s spying programs against Americans simply because of their speech or political beliefs, something forbidden by federal law.

“If you are directed to target people in the United States for surveillance, will you insist that there be a judicial warrant?” asked Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat.

“If confirmed, I will absolutely commit to executing the foreign intelligence mission of the NSA in accordance with the authorities it has been given and within all applicable laws,” Rudd said in response.

The NSA focuses on cybersecurity, digital surveillance and cryptography programs for American national security and works closely with other intelligence agencies and the Pentagon. Its importance has grown in recent years as the internet and digital technology created new opportunities for intelligence gathering as well as new threats from China, Russia and other adversaries.

Lawmakers also demanded assurances that he would inform them of any efforts by the White House to change surveillance policies without congressional consent.

Senators from both parties said they believe Rudd’s nomination will be confirmed by the entire Senate. A date for the vote on his nomination has not been announced.