A 46-year-old Californian man on Friday the 10th pleaded guilty before United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Virginia for being part of a website that recruited minors to help him produce child pornography. According to a statement released by the Department of Justice, USA, the man enticed several children as young as eight in creating explicit content using their web cameras and later enabling others to view these clips. His sentencing will be on the 9th of June.
The accused acts
In his plea, the Californian man by the name Jeffery Van Dyke was alleged to have created false profiles on social networking sites that are popular with kids so as to lure them to two pornographic websites which he, together with others controlled.
Once his victims were on his websites, Jeffery Van showed them pre-recorded videos of previous minors who he had successfully recruited. The videos showed minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, so as to make his new victims think that they were engaging with other youngsters. Jeffery further admitted that he and others used these clips to entice the victims to engage in sexually explicit acts on their web cameras. Their recordings could also be viewed live by other members without the victim’s knowledge. The website automatically recorded the clips and made them available for download later. Law enforcement agencies have however, disabled both sites.
Organizations that headed the investigations and capture of Jeffery
The investigations were part of project 'safe childhood,' an initiative aimed at combating child sexual exploitation and abuse and to locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.
The Fbi led the investigations together with the South African police. The Royal Canadian Police, the Dutch Police Department, and the Australian Federal Police, Child Protection Operations were active partners in a multinational investigation coordinated by members of the FBI’s Violent Crimes Against Children International Taskforce.
