89 are indicted in online porn case
Posted on 03/19/2002 12:13:48 PM PST by MeekOneGOP
89 are indicted in online porn case
East Texas man accused of setting up Web site; 7 other Texans indicted
03/19/2002
WASHINGTON - Clergy members, Little League coaches and a teacher's aide are among the 89 people charged with participating in an Internet site where hard-core child pornography was traded, federal authorities said Monday.
Forty arrests in 20 states had been made as of Monday, among them that of an East Texas man alleged to have set up the "Candyman" site visited by more than 7,000 people until its shutdown last year during an investigation initiated by the Houston FBI office. Fifty more arrests will occur this week, said Bruce Gebhardt, an FBI executive assistant director.
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"It is clear that a new marketplace for child pornography has emerged in the dark corners of cyberspace," Attorney General John Ashcroft told a news conference at FBI headquarters. However, he said, the arrests prove "there will be no free rides on the Internet for traffickers of child pornography."
The man alleged to have set up the "Candyman" e-group in December 2000 Mark Bates, a 32-year-old from Palestine made an initial appearance Monday in federal court in Tyler, federal authorities said. He is among eight people charged in a 10-count federal indictment unsealed Monday in Houston.
Also indicted were seven Texans alleged to have subscribed to the site: Walter Eugene Fitzpatrick, 61, of Liverpool; Robert Froman, 49, of Pasadena; Stephen Michael Johnston, 21, of College Station; Hector Ezeta, 38, of Houston; Jayson Anderson, 28, of Baytown; Billy Loyd White, 45, of Channelview; and Christopher James Tinney, 20, of Katy.
All eight in the Houston indictment were charged with a single count of conspiracy to knowingly transport, receive and distribute child porn by computer, which carries a maximum 15 years' imprisonment and $250,000 fine. Mr. Bates alone was charged with a single count of knowingly transporting child porn by computer, while the seven others were each charged with one count of receiving child porn by computer all of which carry a maximum 15-year prison sentence and $250,000 fine. And the seven were also each charged with a single count of possession of materials containing images of child pornography, which carries a maximum five-year sentence and $250,000 fine.
The Houston indictment alleges that Candyman subscribers were polled on questions such as whether they wanted to see more pornographic images of boys or girls; the age at which they first began abusing children; and the number of children they had molested.
Twenty-seven of those arrested to date have admitted molesting more than 36 children, the FBI said.
Operation Candyman was initiated 14 months ago, after an FBI agent in Houston identified three e-groups involved in posting and exchanging child pornography, the FBI said. FBI officials in Washington declined to provide particulars of the arrests, though they said two Catholic priests as well as several law-enforcement personnel were among those charged.
Investigators examined the 7,000 Candyman subscribers, which included 2,400 people living outside the United States, and prioritized which ones to investigate further, Mr. Gebhardt said.
E-mail: mmittelstadt@dallasnews.com
It seems to me you are making an assumption here. How do we know at least some of these people weren't producing the porn?
I grew up in a different time. We had much more freedom but many of our laws were based on a moral code. I don't see porn as a freedom. Porn was not acceptable when I was growing up and in my opinion in a moral society shouldn't be.
This speaks more about where our society is today more than anything else I think. I don't accept it and I hope they round them all up.
WarHawk42
One clue is he is not incompetent!
Crashing planes into international landmarks and killing thousands of people.
Sorry, taking the time and the energy to set up a sting to catch people passing around kiddie porn (and I'll be interested in seeing how many of these charges hold up in court) that may have been produced decades ago is not justified when foreign agents may be roaming the country eager to kill thousands. In normal times I'd say go for it, but not when the country is at war and under attack.
No one's been charged with it yet, only possession. Perhaps the east Texas ringleader, but it sounds like most of these people were entrapped. Again, normally I wouldn't care, all of them could be hanged, but the war on terror is more important. Perhaps this sting was planned pre-9/11, in any event now those agents need to be reassigned to more vital assignments.
Uh, no they are not terrorists. As Rush Limbaugh says 'words have meanings' and the word terrorist has a specific meaning. It is not just synonymous with 'criminal'.
I have noticed since the beginning of 'the war on terrorism' the tendency for people to apply that term more and more loosely. Thats how you end up with the federal government buying Super Bowl ads(with our money) calling casual drug users terrorists and how you end up with liberal politicians calling Enron execs 'financial terrorists'. Stop the newspeak please.
It's sad that you even had to explain it to the person, but I'm glad you did.
All these pigs in Texas? Does anyone in Texas know if Katy, Channelview, Palestine and College Station are Republican or Democratic towns?
God you're stupid. If you made each picture one count, then people with 10 pictures will wind up in prison longer than someone like Westerfield who actually kidnaps, rapes, and murders a child.
I can understand your outrage but mindless comments like yours are just ridiculous. It's supposed to be a justice system where people are punished according to the severity of their crime.
If you let pedophiles know that you'll punish them more for looking at pictures than you will for actually kidnapping and murdering children, what do you expect to happen?
And if the suspects are not gay and looking at female child porn should the Feds go public with what organizations, churchs and political parties they belong to?
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