Feds Crack Down on Child Porn

Feds Crack Down on Child Porn

NewsMax.com Wires
Thursday, Aug. 9, 2001

WASHINGTON - U.S. undercover agents have busted up what they describe as the largest child pornography ring in American history, one that has festered on the Internet for at least two years, Attorney General John Ashcroft said Wednesday.

Another official making the Operation Avalanche announcement with Ashcroft, Chief Inspector Ken Weaver of the U.S. Postal Service, said the results of the massive investigation might be just "the tip of the iceberg."

Weaver and other federal officials said the two-year investigation yielded more than 100 arrests of people for alleged possession of child pornography, as well as the two operators of the porn ring Web site.

"In early 1999, postal inspectors uncovered a Fort Worth company called Landslide Productions Inc.," Weaver said. "Landslide advertised and conspired to distribute child pornography, primarily through the subscription of Internet Web sites."

Weaver said Landslide took in as much as $1.4 million in a one-month period. "It was clearly a multimillion-dollar enterprise."

"The vast majority of this money was from subscriptions to the child pornography Web sites .... More than $98,000 was transferred to one Web master for just one month's business. An operation of this magnitude was previously unheard of in the United States."

In September 1999, Weaver said, the business was shut down when a multi-agency task force served federal search warrants obtained by postal inspectors on Landslide's office building and the residence of Landslide owners Thomas and Janice Reedy.

"The Reedys were living very well, enjoying a spacious home, driving highly priced automobiles, and living a grand lifestyle at the expense of children who were sexually exploited," Weaver said.

An 89-count federal indictment was returned against the Reedys in April 2000. Five international Web masters were also indicted. "Efforts continue to locate and bring to justice the international co-conspirators," Weaver said.

The Reedys were convicted after a jury trial in December 2000.

On Monday, Reedy was sentenced to what amounted to life in prison, and Mrs. Reedy was sentenced to 14 years in prison. "To be technically correct on this," Weaver said. "Mr. Reedy was sentenced to 15 years for each of the 89 counts, which totaled 1,335 years, to be served consecutively."

After the Reedys were arrested, U.S. officials went after the consumers of their product. Federal officials said later that investigators used credit card numbers from the Reedy site.

"Postal inspectors nationwide combined forces with the 30 federally funded task forces located throughout the United States and launched an aggressive, proactive undercover operation targeting some of the most egregious offenders identified through intelligence gained from this investigation," Weaver said.

"Over the last year, postal inspectors and task force investigators conducted 144 searches in 37 different states .... We expect many more arrests in the near future."