Posted on 01/18/2003 5:26:59 PM PST by MadIvan
An American couple grew rich on the misery of children until a tip-off on a post box number shattered the anonymity of the internet. Julian Coman in Fort Worth talks to the team who caught them
Postal inspectors at the Jack D Watson Post Office in Forth Worth, Texas, spend most of their days investigating credit card fraud, the theft of parcels and other abuses of the US mail system. Early in 1999, however, a very different kind of case came along.
The tip-off that would eventually lead to the arrest of Pete Townshend, the guitarist with The Who, came from an acquaintance of Bob Adams, a postal inspector.
The friend, from Minnesota, who has never been named, stumbled upon a website operating under the name Landslide Productions Inc.
The name of the site was innocuous; its content was not. At the bottom of Landslide Productions' home page, which was illustrated with a scenic mountainside view, was an invitation to click on a button marked "child porn".
Viewers were invited to subscribe by credit card. For those who had no card and wanted to pay by cheque, however, the website also gave a mailing address: a post office box in Fort Worth, Texas.
Mr Adams contacted the nearby Dallas police department, which had set up a unit to investigate the exploitation of children on the internet.
The undercover investigation that followed uncovered the biggest child pornography enterprise in American history. The Dallas police provided Steve Nelson, one of its detectives, with a fake identity and credit card number.
After entering Landslide's child porn site, Mr Nelson found a menu advertising selections such as "children forced to porn", "child rape" and "children of God".
Each selection cost $29.95 for a month's subscription. To join up, the surfer needed to give credit card details and choose a password.
Landslide Productions was traced to Tom and Janice Reedy of Fort Worth, a couple who had recently arrived in the city.
Tom Reedy was a former nurse and had never owned a home. Janice Reedy had lived most of her life in a trailer. Now the couple lived in a mansion and each drove a Mercedes.
The postal inspections service and the Dallas PD brought their investigation to the attention of Terri Moore, an assistant district attorney with a reputation for typically Texan straight-talking.
Under her guidance, the agencies tightened the net around the Reedys. America's laws on child pornography place a far greater burden on investigating authorities to show that a crime is being committed.
"The bigger this became, the more careful we were to get everything right," Ms Moore told The Telegraph.
A consultant from Microsoft was hired to make copies of the sites. The Reedys' bank accounts were tracked. Gradually the scale of the operation became clear.
Tom and Janice Reedy were not running a grubby backstreet service for local paedophiles. They were the middlemen for a global child pornography business, procuring customers to view horrific images of child abuse, usually shot far way in eastern Europe and Asia. More than 7,000 of their customers were British.
At a conservative estimate, Landslide Productions was making $1.3 million (£810,000) a month profit. "We discovered that this couple were making an absolute fortune," said Kenny Smith, a postal inspector at the Jack D Watson building.
Most subscribers, it turned out, could not resist sampling as many of the porn categories as they could afford. In all, there were 2,000 available.
A separate site of "adult classifieds" included entries from fathers advertising their children for sex. The company's outgoings included payments to Russia and Indonesia, where the images originated.
When the Reedys' lavish home was raided, a database was removed containing the names and credit details of 350,000 subscribers in 60 countries.
"Tom Reedy had been playing the role of a madam in a whorehouse and this was a list of the visitors," said Ms Moore.
"I went through my area of Fort Worth straight away and looked for the prominent names. There were lawyers, doctors, teachers. The database was a cross-section of respectable society."
The frustration for the assistant DA, however, was once again that American law requires prosecutors to catch subscribers online.
Had Townshend lived in America, Ms Moore could not have arrested him for previous visits to child pornography sites.
Instead, prosecutors monitored the website, intercepted letters and emails and amassed evidence. Then they moved against the Reedys.
In December 2000 a federal jury convicted the couple on more than 85 counts of child exploitation. Tom Reedy was sentenced to 1,335 years in prison. Janice, for aiding and abetting, received 14 years.
"Reedy's emails buried him," said Ms Moore. "We read somewhere that he was trying to get stronger stuff on the sites. He was saying that customers weren't satisfied."
The conviction enabled the US authorities to pass on the identities of all the couple's foreign clients to Interpol: in September 2001 Britain's National Crime Squad received 7,200 names.
Detectives in Britain were horrified at the number of people on the list, which they knew would generate their biggest paedophile inquiry.
Carole Howlett, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police and the lead officer in the inquiry, immediately recognised more than a dozen household names on the list.
A colleague said: "The list was held in great secrecy. The few officers who did know were amazed at the extent of interest in child porn.
"We realised that most forces did not have enough expertise and manpower for a national swoop. Instead, it was decided to proceed with caution and arrest those who worked with children first."
Last month, rumours began to circulate in Texas that among those on the list was Townshend. Kenny Smith, the postal investigator, was in church when a colleague rang with the news of Townshend's arrest. "It was startling to think how far the Reedy case had gone," he said.
For Ms Moore, though, the news was painful. It reminded her that the vast majority of American subscribers were beyond her reach: the authorities could simply monitor them and hope to catch them if they reoffended.
As a music-lover, the news also affected her. "I love The Who," she said. "When I heard that Pete had been arrested it just made me sad." Townshend said that he had looked at the site only a couple of times for research.
Ms Moore remains proud of her achievement in breaking what is thought to be the biggest internet child pornography operation in the world.
"The case was pretty precedent-setting. Maybe it means a particular kid won't get molested. To feed the hunger of paedophiles is disgusting. These people were getting rich off the misery of children."
So "looking at pictures" = the death penalty.
Is that a valid synopsis of your opinion?
You see no distinction between the person who abused the chldren and took the photos, the person who put the images on the Internet, and the person who views those images? I guess you wholheartedly agree then in those anti-drug ads. I suppose you would then agree that Dionne Warwick should be executed for carrying a bag of cocaine through an airport, since it is morally equivalent to the Columbian druglord who produced it.
Paedophila - the death penalty. Absolutely. And here is why - because the people who are paying their money into this site are encouraging a trade which is abominable. It is intolerable. If you can't grasp how this is just beyond the pale, then I can't help you - you have no moral compass.
I guess you wholheartedly agree then in those anti-drug ads. I suppose you would then agree that Dionne Warwick should be executed for carrying a bag of cocaine through an airport, since it is morally equivalent to the Columbian druglord who produced it.
Take a valium before you attempt such parallels - substance abuse is bad, but there is volition on the part of those who snort drugs. These children who are violated have no choice.
One may wonder why you are so vigourously defending the right of people to view child pornography, however.
Ivan
And how am I doing that? Read my post. I am rightly suspicious of government entities which want to spy on everything website we surf on the Internet. Perhaps you approve of the "Information Awareness Office" and its goal of doing just that, in addition to tracking every purchase, phone call, and email we transmit. I do not. I do not approve of paedophiles. I approve of due process.
No you don't. Due process is already served by the person having submitted their credit card and address information, actually paying for the child pornography. If there is credit card fraud, all right. But apart from that, that is an act of purchasing, obtaining child pornography, which can and should be illegal.
You are raising the bar to heights that make it difficult to catch paedophiles out there, who are continuing to fuel sites like this one. Proud of yourself?
Ivan
I oppose the unrestricted right of government to intrude in our lives, particularly without due process. I do not defend paedophiles. But you are too emotional to see that. Too bad.
So what is the issue of civil liberties when an investigation into a crime turns up a name?
I wan't lecturing you, I was suggesting that child porn and child molestation is so serious that perverts who indulge in that should be pursued vigorously. Many people don't understand how devastating it is to the child.... just thought I would give you a little heads up on that.
On the contrary, you are the one being emotional. You are so afraid that government might do the wrong thing, you want it to do nothing. Even when the case is utterly egregious. I have tirelessly pointed out to you that the standard at present is unreasonable, and the logic behind it. However your emotionalism, your fear of the government, makes you want it to do nothing, even when it should be doing something.
Think about it.
Ivan
I am not raising the bar. And I agree that purveyors should be executed. I view consumers as distinct from purveyors, as does the law in most cases. And what if someone's child used their credit card, or a friend, or it was stolen? This has happened to me for shopping-type sites, and it could easily happen for paedophile sites, and some teens may not realize what they are subscribing is illegal, when they use their parent's credit card. DA's don't care. I can just see this DA's wanting to put out lists and photos of everyone of the subscriber list...he is dying to do it. I resist the unbridled exercise of power by the government at every turn. DA's are not to be trusted, but checked.
As previously stated, that would have to be investigated. But at the same time, this should not be a bar to making subscription sufficient proof for a prosecution of the genuine cases.
I can just see this DA's wanting to put out lists and photos of everyone of the subscriber list...he is dying to do it. I resist the unbridled exercise of power by the government at every turn. DA's are not to be trusted, but checked.
Now who's being emotional?
Ivan
Not true. If I gave that impression I will end it here. I am afraid of ambitious DA's playing with people's lives for their own political gain. They do it every day. I am afraid of Poindexter's OIA. I am afraid of thought crime, and what will happen if one day you use the "N" word or the word "fag" in an email, unaware that your state has made that illegal as a "hate crime", punishable by 1 year in prison and a $10,000 fine, by slipping it into a law lauded for its protection of "diversity" (this will likely happen first in Canada), and has been tracking every word you type.
But don't you see, this entire statement is an expression of fear in and of itself. OK, there are ambitious and power-mad people. But that should not be a bar on this specific instance - i.e., that people who subscribe, meaning pay, to view child pornography should be brought to justice and have that subscription as evidence. Now they will have to check for fraud, but it is far better that they do a check for fraud than blithely let the paedophile go. And God knows how many thousands are going to escape justice due to this particular barrier being raised.
Ivan
Montag813, you were close on political ambition. Ms. Moore used this prosecution in her campaign for the local criminal district attorney. Fortunately, she was swamped under in the GOP landslide here in Tarrant County.
As a point of political trivia, Ms. Moore's husband was the publisher of Jim Wright's infamous "Reflections of a Public Man" -- whose phony royalties forced Wright out of office.
If you read the article, you have to note that the "DA" that you abhor hasn't been involved at all. This was a crime unit who uncovered a ring of pedophiles, but who can't do anything about it because our laws require catching the pervert in the act.
This article points out that in this country, we can get solid evidence that someone is engaging in this horrendous act, and yet we can't do anything about it unless we actually catch them in the act.
Talk about government interference. If the government has to monitor every online activity to catch someone known to participate in child pornography, how is that better than simply investigating people whose names appear in investigations into these lurid activities?
MY QUESTION EXACTLY!!!!!
kind of like....why do some Priests/Cardinals shove the peodophiles amongst them under the rug....out of sight.....or so it seems.....until they OFFEND AGAIN!!!
I agree. If I can only get the credit card numbers from some of the people who have offended me over the years life will get very bad for them. By merely using their address and the credit card number I can put them in the position of having to prove that they are not deserving of spending a thousand years in jail.
What could such a person possible offer as evidence proving their innocence. Hey, this could be great fun and a very effective tool for political opponents.
Well, it does and it doesn't. I think as much as anything else, the article sort of oversimplifies the situation here. The mere act of subscribing to such a website is not, in and of itself, illegal. What is illegal is possessing child pornography. I think what was meant by "catching them in the act" is that if you have someone that you know is currently browsing the site, then you know they are currently in possession of child porn, thanks to their browser cache, if nothing else. Thus, you could coordinate an arrest with their browsing activity.
However, what I don't understand, is that finding someone's name and credit card number in the records of a site that deals in child porn should easily be grounds for a search warrant. So why not get warrants and start searching computers? If they have something there, you arrest them and prosecute them, and if there's nothing, you let them go and hope they slip up sometime in the future. I can't for the life of me understand why they wouldn't do that, unless the sheer numbers of people involved would have made it impossible - perhaps they were worried that they would nab a few folks, and then the word would get out that the police were on the move. And then, after that, they'd find nothing but a bunch of cleanly-wiped hard drives, and end up wasting a lot of time. But it still makes sense to me to try....
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