The United States Department of Justice announced today that Warren Weber, 56, of Boise, Idaho, plead guilty to charges concerning his involvement in a vast global child pornography trafficking enterprise.
Weber was one of 14 alleged members of the enterprise who were charged in a 40-count superseding indictment on March 19, 2008. He has pleaded guilty to five counts relating to his criminal activities as a member of the group: engaging in a child exploitation enterprise; conspiracy to advertise, transport, ship, receive and possess child pornography; advertising child pornography; transporting child pornography; and receiving child pornography. His case represents one of the first convictions under the Child Exploitation Enterprise statute, passed in July 2006 as part of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.
Weber has admitted to participating in a highly-sophisticated and well-organized criminal enterprise whose purpose was to proliferate child sex abuse images to its membership over a two year period. According to Weber’s guilty plea, members of the illegal organization utilized Internet newsgroups - large file-sharing networks where text, software, pictures and videos can be traded and shared - to traffic in illegal images and videos depicting prepubescent children, including toddlers, engaged in various sexual and sadistic acts. Group members utilized sophisticated encryption methods to avoid detection and traded more than 400,000 images and videos of child sexual abuse before being dismantled by law enforcement. The charges were developed after law enforcement infiltrated the group in August 2006.
Trial for the remaining defendants is scheduled to begin June 2, 2008, in Pensacola, Florida.
