27 Charged in International Online Child Pornography Ring

[OpenMind]

27 Charged in International Online Child Pornography Ring

By GRETCHEN RUETHLING

Published: March 16, 2006

CHICAGO, March 15 ” Federal and international authorities have charged 27 people in nine states and three other countries in connection with an Internet child pornography ring that federal authorities say is one of the worst they have discovered.

Live video images of children being molested were transmitted over the Internet, the authorities said.

"The behavior in these chat rooms and the images many of these defendants sent around the world through peer-to-peer file-sharing programs and private instant messaging services are the worst imaginable forms of child pornography," Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said at a news conference in Chicago, where the indictments were announced Wednesday.

Federal and state charges, including the manufacture, possession and distribution of child pornography, have been filed against 13 people in Illinois, Tennessee, Michigan, Nevada, Florida, New York, Arizona, Hawaii and North Carolina. Charges have also been brought against 14 defendants in Canada, Australia and Britain.

"Some of the aspects of this case are truly horrifying," said Julie L. Myers, assistant secretary for United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement, at the news conference. "It's hard to find cases more heinous than those that involve the exploitation of children."

Mr. Gonzales said one of the victims was under 18 months old.

The defendants are accused of trading thousands of images of child pornography over at least the past year in a private Internet chat room called Kiddypics & Kiddyvids. Four of them are also accused of molesting seven children, who are now in protective custody, Mr. Gonzales said.

Ms. Myers said the case reflected three larger trends that are becoming more common in child pornography rings.

One is the increasing prevalence of "home-grown" pornographic images that are produced by predators themselves and include live streaming video images of children being molested, not just the circulation of repeated images, she said.

Another trend is the growing use of sophisticated security measures and of peer-to-peer networking, where participants can share files with one another on their computers rather than downloading them off a Web site, she said. The group used encryption and data destruction software to protect the files and screening measures to ensure only authorized participants could enter the chat room.

A third trend is the increasingly violent and graphic nature of the images involving the molesting of younger children, Ms. Myers said.

The international investigation began in May 2005 with the arrest of a participant in Edmonton, Alberta.

According to indictments returned Tuesday by a grand jury against four defendants in Chicago, participants shared files and used instant messaging to transmit images under screen names like Big_Daddy619, Lord Newbie and A_School_Teacher.

Many of the defendants had "ongoing access" to children, said Deputy Chief Tony Warr of the Toronto Police Service, which was involved in the investigation. He said investigators used software specially developed by Microsoft to track and identify hits on pornographic sites.

The chat room's primary host, Royal Raymond Weller of Clarksville, Tenn., was arrested last week. Mr. Weller, 49, a service repairman whose screen name was G.O.D., used a strict security system and would kick out participants if they used forbidden words like "incest" or "cam" in their messages, said Paul M. O'Brien, an assistant United States attorney in Nashville. Mr. Weller has not entered a plea.

All 27 defendants face child pornography charges in the United States or abroad or have already been prosecuted abroad. One defendant is a fugitive.

Theo Emery contributed reporting from Nashville for this article.

Copyright 2006HYPERLINK "http://www.nytco.com/"The New York Times Company

[minks]

Splatter the names and pics of these criminals on the net and toss them into main stream jail I say There is no creature lower than one who abuses the innocent.

[OpenMind]

Absolutely!!!

[minks]

Clipper wrote: My vote goes to....HANG EM HIGH!!!:mad:


by their dangly bits, but I think even that is too good for them.

[minks]

Clipper wrote: Dangly bits?? Dang but this new terminology has me stumped fer a bit....


ahaha but you do understand me right? hehehe Ooo not to make light of this thread

[Jives]

Since it's pretty much known that these guys can't ever be rehabilitated, shouldn't we sentence them to prison without parole? Or maybe just a frontal lobotomy? What about sterilization?:(

Seriously, child molesters should never be allowed to interact with society again.

[Jives]

I agree. Isn't the CIA pretty good at brainwashing now? Let's just give 'em tons of sleep-deprivation, hypnosis, and hallucinogens until they become meek little kitty cats.

Rewrite their whole personality!

[sunny104]

Jives wrote: Since it's pretty much known that these guys can't ever be rehabilitated, shouldn't we sentence them to prison without parole? Or maybe just a frontal lobotomy? What about sterilization?:(

Seriously, child molesters should never be allowed to interact with society again.


Exactly!:mad:

[pina]

These people don't deserve to live, not even in prison.

[OpenMind]

This was a pretty good haul. But I have an instinct that this is just a small ripple. It worries me just how many more of them are out there. It sometimes seems to me that half the world are child molesters.

[minks]

pina wrote: These people don't deserve to live, not even in prison.


oh I don't think if they were led into main stream maximum security prison they would live long, I think they would get their just rewards....

[OpenMind]

minks wrote: oh I don't think if they were led into main stream maximum security prison they would live long, I think they would get their just rewards....


Put them all in a female prison first. Those that are still alive can then be sent to the male prisons.

[OpenMind]

JAB wrote: In my book, they gave up their rights once they took away the rights of the children to be innocent children. There is no more dispicable creature than these lowlifes. They should be castrated with as much pain as possible and torn to shreds, bit by miserable bit.


Or sprayed with hormone juice and put into an elephants' pound.

[daffodil52]

I say . has a punishment they should be blinded. and crippled ,,,,,

no eyes no legs to run,,,, lol daffy50 or we should used them as lab rats......



slow death give them aids....... or eblola

lol

Thumbs down

[minks]

daffodil52 wrote: I say . has a punishment they should be blinded. and crippled ,,,,,

no eyes no legs to run,,,, lol daffy50 or we should used them as lab rats......



slow death give them aids....... or eblola

lol

Thumbs down


no kidding I have to agree with you there,

geeze pair this up with the story of the men who's heads blew up 3 times the size and have them go through drug testing over and over.....

[Jives]

JAB wrote: In my book, they gave up their rights once they took away the rights of the children to be innocent children.


I couldn't agree more. Why does this crime makes us so incensed? Because the targets are children and the cost is any chance that they might have had to have a normal life.

What's really disturbing is that the cops said that they saw a huge increase in "new" victims. Usually it's just recycled stuff from "Known and previous" victims. You know, pictures that have been passed around for years. They have identified 7 out of ten of the new victims, but that still leaves 3 little children out there...in a living Hell on Earth.

The police say that this marks a new trend towards generating victims.

What makes my skin crawl is that they said the stuff was the "worst imaginable."

Man....I don't even want to go there.:-2

[venus]

ok to deal with this we need a few things...

a large empty pool, sides too big to crawl out of.

a pack of hungry dogs .

a pack of parents who's children have ben victims.

a gun with one bullet.

the perv has a choice the empty pool with the dogs, the parents or he can go alone with the gun...

problem solved.

[Peg]

This is why child molestation laws need changed NOW. The laws need to be made tougher so at least one molester might think twice, and so molesters are not set free to molest again. Give the parents of these children the option of dealing out their own justice, or give them to me and let me do it.:-5

[BabyRider]

I read once about a form of justice used somewhere, (I can't recall where) wherein the family of the abused victims basically gets free reign with the weapon of their choice on the perps.

I'm all for it, except that this thing was worldwide. So. We take them all, permanently spray-paint them some flourescent color, and turn them loose on the streets for the citizens to hunt and do with as they please.

Nothing anyone could ever do to them would be as awful as the pain they have inflicted.

Me? I'd love to hunt me a child rapist.

Kill 'em all, let God sort them out.

[pantsonfire321@aol.com]

If i had the choice i would have every convicted peadophile given the death penulty. But back in the real world they need to kept in solitary period, not housed together so they can swap storys and spend their sentance fantasizing and gaining tips on how to groom their next victim .There should be no parole just immediate long sentances and compulsary programes .