Several years ago when I was working as a police/court reporter, I stumbled upon a rumor that a veteran law enforcement officer was under investigation for sexually molesting a minor. I called a close acquaintance of mine who also was a longtime acquaintance of his and ran the information by her.

She was not pleased – with me, that is.

“You’re going to ruin his reputation,” she scolded. “Based on some rumor. He would never do such a thing. There’s just no way.”

As it turned out, the officer was placed on administrative leave, indicted and fired when he pleaded guilty.

I called her back to tell her.

“Well, I guess that’s it then. All I can say is I guess you simply can’t trust anyone. I don’t think you can trust any man if you can’t trust him. I would have put my grandchildren in the back of his cruiser and sent them on their way and not thought for one minute they would be in any danger,” she said in a voice filled with anger and hurt.

Her realization of that was both sad and frightening, and it has stayed with me.

A year or so later, similar charges were levied against a court bailiff with whom I often chit-chatted over coffee before morning court sessions. He’s now one of about 1,600 people listed on Maine’s sex-offender registry.

Of course, we all have read and heard endlessly about the number of Catholic priests who spent decades, in some cases, sexually abusing children.

In the past six months, two teachers from the relatively small Holbrook School in Holden have been sentenced for possessing or viewing child pornography.

The news that an otherwise “respected and upstanding” member of the community has been charged with such a heinous and lewd crime continues to shock us.

How could “such a nice guy” who arrests the bad guys, teaches our children, coaches Little League and volunteers in our community sexually abuse a child or view that abuse on the Internet?

What could possibly be sexually arousing about a 4-year-old boy or a 10-year-old girl? How could they be so very sick and still seem so “normal” to the rest of us?

A study released earlier this month titled “National Juvenile Online Victimization Study” attempted to get a handle on the growing problem of on-line child pornography. The researchers studied arrests for the possession of child pornography for one year from 2000 to 2001.

Here are a few of their findings.

Virtually all of those arrested for possession of child pornography, 1,713 that year, were men. Ninety-one percent were white, and 86 percent were older than 25. Thirty-eight percent were either married or living with partners, and 21 percent were divorced or widowed. Forty-two percent had children, and 34 percent were living with minor children at the time of the offenses. Forty-six percent had direct access to minors because they lived with them or had access through a job or organized youth activity.

Here is where it got interesting. Few of them had histories of problems or criminal behavior. Few had been diagnosed with mental or sexual disorders, and very few evidenced public signs of deviant sexual behavior.

Some were well-educated, and some had not finished high school. Some were wealthy, and some were poor. Some were middle class, and some were well-known and well-thought of in their communities.

OK, you may ask, like a couple of men in the newsroom did. What is considered child porn? Maybe these poor schmucks were just surfing through “mainstream” porn and by accident viewed a few 16- or 17- year-old girls.

Well maybe some, but 83 percent had images of children between the ages of 6 and 12; 39 percent had images of children 3 to 5 years old, and 19 percent had images of toddlers or infants younger than 3.

Barry Anechiarico, a Portland social worker who does some work with the Maine Department of Corrections sex offender program, told me this week that sexual obsession with children was not much different than any of dozens of sexual fetishes that a person may have.

He said that many sex offenders have low self-esteem, are vulnerable to humiliation and unable to form intimate attachments to other people.

Many idolize children and obsess with their innocence and acceptance.

“They see them as a source of love they are otherwise unable to achieve in their own lives,” he said.

I tried very hard to understand what he was saying, but somewhere along the line, he started talking about how the smoothness of a baby’s bottom could be considered by some to be sensual. I think I unwittingly began to tune out. I guess that’s why he treats sex offenders, and I don’t.

The good news is that law enforcement is getting much better at finding those who create child pornography and those who possess it.

They may think they are operating in a safe cocoon, anonymous behind their monitor. They are not. The growing numbers of arrests prove that.

The bad news is that we will probably continue to be shocked to learn just who it is among us who are guilty.