March 17

Events

1964 - "I want to thank all the little people who made this possible." - Actor Rob Lowe was born on this date. His career began when he was a young boy and he worked as a model. His first film was made-for-television and called Schoolboy Father (1980). Lowe played a 16-year-old boy who discovers that he has become a father as a result of a summer romance. In his second theatrical film, Class, 19-year-old Lowe played a boy whose school roommate is having an affair with his mother. At age 20, Lowe appeared in The Hotel New Hampshire as a boy having an incestuous relationship with his sister, played by Jodie Foster. In 1987, in Square Dance, Lowe played a mentally retarded man who makes friends with a 13-year-old girl. They play together, pretending to be married. For that performance, he was nominated for a Golden Globe. In 1988, Lowe made his most infamous film. He was involved in a scandal centering around a sexually explicit videotape he made of himself with a minor. For that performance, he was sentenced to 20 hours of community service.

1997 - Give him a gold star for originality, at least - A kindergarten teacher from New Jersey who thought he had used the Internet to arrange for sex with an 11-year-old boy was arrested in a motel room on this date by police who set up the "cybersting." Lawrence Cohen used the Internet to send the cops posing as a boy photographs showing young boys engaged in sex acts involving leather restraints and other sadomasochistic devices. Cohen's lawyer said he has four separate personalities and that one of them - a 14-year-old named Jason - had done the cruising on the Internet. The lawyer said Cohen was sexually molested at a summer camp when he was a child and that Jason had set out into cyberspace to find the culprit. He admitted that his client had pornographic materials but said he had never sent them to the Customs Service informant. He said a hacker must have interfaced with Cohen's computer, downloaded the material and transmitted it to Arizona. He also said Cohen had never attempted to arrange a meeting with an 11-year-old and that he was planning to meet an adult at the motel. At least his explanation was better than saying his dog ate his homework. No more believable, but interesting.

1998 - The cycle of violence? - Six people were arrested in the UK on this date after an angry mob smashed windows at the home of a man they suspected of being a pedo. Police said the "unruly crowd" wanted to "forcibly evict" the man they suspected of sexually assaulting a local boy. The man was not in the house at the time, but his wife and child had to be escorted from the property for their own safety.