From CNN.com

KANSAS CITY, Missouri (AP) -- Federal prosecutors have unsealed an indictment accusing a man and woman of training the woman's child to be a dominatrix, selling her sexual services and photographing some of the acts.

U.S. Attorney John Wood said the case is unusual in that a parent has been charged with the commercial sex trafficking of his or her own minor child.

Todd B. Barkau, 35, of New York state, and the 44-year-old mother were charged in the seven-count indictment. They once lived together in Blue Springs, Missouri, where the sex business was allegedly run.

"Barkau obtained control of a 12-year-old girl and he groomed, trained and forced her to become a sexual dominatrix," Wood said at a news conference in Kansas City on Monday.

Barkau was arrested near Niagara Falls and had an initial court appearance Saturday in Buffalo, New York, Wood said.

The mother was arrested Friday in Dallas, Texas. Messages left at the Northern District of Texas court seeking comment late Monday were not immediately returned.

Don Ledford, a spokesman for Wood, said as far as he knew neither defendant had been assigned attorneys.

The mother's name is not being published to protect the identity of the daughter, who is now 20 years old.

Federal prosecutors, who investigated the case for nearly two years, have filed a motion to detain both suspects in federal custody without bond.

The indictment says Barkau began training the girl in 2000 when she was 12, and forced her to engage in sex acts with him and with other men. According to the indictment, he also had the girl watch pornography on the Internet as a teaching tool.

Barkau is accused of creating a business out of the couple's Missouri home when the girl was 14 and marketing her as a 19-to-20-year-old dominatrix on the Internet for about two years.

The mother is charged with encouraging and participating in the venture, the indictment says.

Prosecutors will seek $80,000 the couple is accused of having made through sex trafficking, Wood said.

Two recent columns by yours truly about the use of Tasers by police brought passionate responses from readers on both sides of the issue. The most passionate were readers who interpreted the columns as blanket slams of the police force, as if criticizing the apparent over-use of Tasers amounted to being "a cop hater." By that same thought process, if I criticize the New York Yankees management for not acquiring good pitchers, then I must be a baseball hater. Frankly, there's not much anyone can do for that kind of logic dysfunction, so I won't bother.

I exchanged e-mails with several readers who were concerned about whether our police are employing Tasers as a tool of convenience rather than a last resort before using a gun. Those readers wanted more information. I recommend an article that ran in the Canadian magazine Tyee, and which is reprinted today by Alternet. In the article, a journalist wants to be Tased by the Royal Canadian police; they agree, but then are overruled by supervisors in the Department of Justice. The bottom line,  according to the police, was that "we really don't fully understand and know the risks." The author concludes, "Trouble is, nobody fully knows the risks, and until we do, the controversies surrounding this weapon are bound to continue."

There are still many doubts about the safety of Tasers, and so much more to learn from ongoing research. To say the least, tasers are controversial weapons and are becoming more controversial all the time as injuries, deaths, misuse and lawsuits pile up. Add to that the cold hard fact that more than 300 people in North America have died after being tasered since the weapon was introduced in 1999, and my proposal seems relatively mild. So, I still suggest that the city of Charlotte should stop the use of Tasers by police until more definitive research is concluded about the weapon's full effects and possible complications. This proposal seems far more reasonable, to my way of thinking, than continuing the use of a weapon that has "accidentally" killed so many people.

The three men vying to be the next head of the Charlotte Mecklenburg Police Department are going to be on public display today at the Blake Hotel. But with Charlotte's rising crime rate, why would anyone want this job? And why is it that since the Dilworth neighbors are experiencing more crime in their neighborhood that fighting criminals is a bigger priority. Neighbors in west, east and north Charlotte have been dealing with these problem for years and the city council and police seemed to turn a blind eye. But I digress.

Back to the police chief job. CMPD describes the potential department leaders as:

With experience ranging from 22 years to 28 years in policing, law enforcement, administration, operations and technology, the finalists for CMPD Chief of Police are:

Deputy Chief Jerry Sennett, CMPD

As Deputy Chief of CMPD, a consolidated city-county department, he is responsible for several different divisions, including Support Services and Field Services. Sennett supervises service area majors, who oversee such specialized units as the Transit Policing Unit, Special Events, Secondary Employment and the Charlotte-Douglas International Airport Law Enforcement. He implemented COMPSTAT, a system for managing police operations by pinpointing locations, methods and perpetrators of crime, allowing CMPD to improve service throughout its 13 patrol districts. Sennett was promoted to Deputy Chief in 2004. He joined CMPD in 1979.

Deputy Police Chief Alan Dreher, Atlanta Police Department

Dreher is responsible for the daily operations of the largest municipal law enforcement agency in the State of Georgia. Since 2002, he has managed the Criminal Investigations Division, Field Operations, Support Services, the Division of Taxicabs and Vehicles for Hire and the Field Inspections Section. Prior to working in Atlanta, he served 23 years with the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department where he rose to the rank of Deputy Chief, during which he was responsible for police service at Capitol Hill, The White House, and the Downtown District.

Police Chief Rodney Monroe, Richmond Police Department

Since 2004 Monroe has served as Police Chief of the City of Richmond where he created a dedicated homicide unit and started the Cooperative Violence Reduction Partnership (CVRP) with prosecutorial and correctional agencies. During his tenure as Police Chief, homicides were reduced by 33 percent. He began his policing career in 1979 as a police officer with the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department, rising to Assistant Chief of Police, the department's second highest sworn rank.  He also served as Chief of Police in Macon, GA for five years.

The public is invited to attend a public forum to meet and address all three candidates on Tuesday, May 13 at the Blake Hotel on McDowell Street starting with a candidate reception at 6 p.m. immediately followed by individual candidate forums.  The new Chief of Police will be named before June 1, 2008.