Group Running Sexually Exploitative Websites Convicted in the U.S.
Published on August 19, 2021
- A supposed children's modeling agency was running subscription-based websites with content repositories.
- The company was finding families in a dire financial situation from Eastern Europe, convincing them to exploit their children.
- In some cases, they made children as young as six years old pose provocatively in their underwear.
Four residents of Florida in the United States have been charged and convicted for their role and involvement in an international enterprise that operated websites that were actually sexually exploiting children. The internet business is named ‘Newstar Enterprise,’ and it operated several websites that were supposedly dedicated to children modeling. The firm was luring underage models from Ukraine, Moldova, and other Eastern European countries and took sexually explicit images and videos of them to sell them to third parties.
In total, ‘Newstar Enterprise’ produced over 4.6 million sexualized images and videos depicting minors engaging in explicit conduct, wearing inappropriate clothing, and posing provocatively. In many cases, the children depicted in these images and videos are as young as six years old, and their parents decided to victimize them mainly due to poverty. This is why Newstar Enterprise was promoting itself so aggressively to Eastern Europe, as finding families willing to provide them with the material was easier.
The websites operated by ‘Newstar Enterprise’ offered a membership scheme where supposed modeling agents could subscribe. Still, obviously, most of them were not professionals in the field but persons keen to pay for child abuse material. The website operators even used a bogus jewelry company and fraudulent bank accounts opened in its name to receive the money from these subscriptions and then distribute it to Newstar Enterprise members.
The charged individuals are the following:
- Tatiana Power – Indicted and pending trial over charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, international promotion money laundering, and concealment money laundering. Facing a maximum penalty of 100 years of imprisonment.
- Kenneth Power – Defendant deceased so the case got dismissed. Was facing charges of conspiracy to advertise child pornography and conspiracy to distribute child pornography, capable of incurring a maximum of 60 years in prison.
- Patrice Wilowski-Mevorah – Pleaded guilty and awaiting to hear the sentence, which could go up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering.
- Mary Lour Bjorkman – Pleaded guilty and awaiting to hear the sentence, which could go up to 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering.
The defendants will also forfeit $9.4 million, which can be traced back to the offenses as well as any real property they hold and located in Florida.
This is yet another reminder that one cannot mask child abuse on the pretense of anything and expect to go unnoticed by the authorities. Even when someone tries to blackmail low-income families privately on Facebook and force them to have their children exposed, law enforcement agents will find it out and justice will be served.
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