Five Charged In Overseas Kiddie Porn Ring
U.S. Web Site Allegedly Served as Gateway
By David Noack
Originally published at APBnews.com, April 14, 2000
DALLAS (APBnews.com) — A Texas couple's Web site served as a gateway to a world of kiddie porn, providing access to sites based in Russia and Indonesia that showed children as young as 4 years old engaged in sex acts, federal prosecutors said.
An 87-count indictment, which was announced Thursday by Paul E. Coggins, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, was believed to be the first attempt to go after foreign Webmasters who host and create such sites.
Named in the indictment were Thomas Reedy, 37, and his wife, Janice, 31, both of Fort Worth, along with R.W. Kusuma and Hanny Ingganata of Indonesia and Boris Greenberg of Russia.The Reedys' business, Landslide Inc., also was indicted.
The Reedys were arrested Wednesday. The foreign residents, who live overseas, were not arrested. Coggins said he would try to extradite them, but he could not say whether authorities in Indonesia and Russia were cooperating.
Landmark indictment
The maximum penalty for each count is 15 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
"Foreign Webmasters have invaded our country with kiddie porn over the Internet. This indictment is the first in history to target the foreign Webmasters and their corrupt co-conspirators in the United States," Coggins said.
The ages of the children in the movies and photos ranged from 4 to 12, investigators said.
The government alleges that Landslide Inc., as part of the conspiracy, would provide credit card verification that acted as an "electronic gateway" to the child porn movies at the Web sites operated by Kusuma, Greenberg and Ingganata.
Sharing the money
Landslide, say government attorneys, would verify and debit the credit cards and issue a username and password, which allowed the customers access to the Web sites, taking in $1million. Landslide charged each customer $29.95 monthly for access to these sites. One million dollars was made between October 1998 and September 1999.
The money was shared, with the Reedys getting a third of the proceeds and the three foreign Webmasters the rest.
In addition, the government says, Landslide also allegedly ran an electronic bulletin board to "capture customers" and post "notices, promotions, advertisements, and images of child pornography in order to market, advertise and promote child pornography by computer."
According to a domain name search, the Web sites Landslide.com and KeyZ.com are both listed under Reedy's name and are part of the couple's business, which provided adult verification systems (AVS).
The Web site now tells users that the company is under investigation by law enforcement officials.
Adult-verification systems bill credit card holders a flat fee for a certain amount of time and provide a password that can provide access to thousands of participating sex sites.
Company claims protection of kids
"Landslide Inc., owner of AVS and KeyZ verification service programs, are sorry to report that we are under federal investigation and cannot divulge information concerning the case," says a message on the Web site. "However, we can tell you that due to circumstances beyond our control, we are temporarily unable to offer our services online."
The message also asked users for contributions to the company's legal defense fund.
"Please buy an Adult Check ID, and show your support to fight this injustice! We have not been charged with any crime, but our computers and all bank funds were seized. The assistant U.S. attorney of North Texas is the prosecuting attorney."
The message portrays the company as a filter that keeps children from viewing pornography.
"We firmly believe that any adult material should be blocked from minor access, especially content that is way beyond the norm in obscenity, and because we choose to block such content from minor access strengthens our ability to protect children from accessing all adult material, and in no way should we be accused of any criminal act."
Foreign distribution
Julie Posey, director of PedoWatch, a nonprofit group that fights child pornography, said her organization gets from 70 to 100 reports a month about child pornography on the Internet.
"In approximately 75 percent of the reports that we get, the pornography is coming from Web sites outside the U.S. or are being distributed by someone living outside the U.S.," Posey said.
Brad Astrowsky, a former Maricopa County, Ariz., prosecutor, said that child porn is not just available via Web pages, but also in chat rooms and in text-based Usenet Newsgroups or discussion areas.
"It's a tremendous problem. If you went online and you were looking for child porn, you can get yourself an image in five minutes," said Astrowsky, a staff lawyer at the American Prosecutors Research Institute, where he focuses on child abuse.
