Ayanna Nahmias, Editor-in-Chief
Last Modified: 09:55 AM EDT, 5 August 2011
U.S. federal government officials announced the arrests of 52 people involved in an international online child pornography ring that exploited children through a bulletin board with the moniker “Dreamboard.”
The arrests were the culmination of an investigation launched in late 2009. Code named ‘Operation Delego,” this phase of the investigation was an out growth of an earlier sting instigated to capture online child sexual predators. To date a total of 72 defendants have been charged and more than 500 additional people have been indicted for their participation in this heinous child sexual exploitation and rape ring.
‘Dreamboard,’ a members-only, online bulletin board created and operated to promote pedophilia, first came to the attention of authorities in 2009. Members hail from five continents and 13 countries including Canada, Denmark, Ecuador, France, Germany, Serbia and Sweden.
In a perverse parody of due diligence, the board’s administrators rigorously screened applicants to validate that future participants’ predilections were prurient enough for membership. When applying for membership applicants were required to submit compromising pornographic images of themselves with children 12 years or younger.
Upon being granted membership, pedophiles had immediate access to graphic images and videos of adults molesting children 12 years old and under, often violently. To remain in ‘good standing’ participants had to frequently update their profiles with new images and videos of children as they raped them.
“The members of this criminal network shared a demented dream to create the preeminent online community for the promotion of child sexual exploitation but for the children they victimized, this was nothing short of a nightmare,” U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in an August 3rd statement.
The indictments and arrests were conducted in three separate phases over the two-year span of the operation. Each of the 72 defendants are charged with conspiring to advertise and distribute child pornography and 50 of them are also charged with engaging in child pornography enterprise.
Of the 52 defendants arrested yesterday, 13 have pleaded guilty; while 20 of the 72 remain at large and are known only by their online identities.
Four of the 13 people who pleaded guilty have been sentenced to prison terms ranging from 20 to 30 years in prison.
The travesty of these crimes is that many of the perpetrators will probably remain free because of the veil of anonymity the Internet provides. Additionally, though the sentences of 20 to 30 years may seem lengthy, they pale by comparison to the life sentences these men have meted out to their victims.
The physical, sociological and psychological damage perpetrated against these children will last a lifetime and will affect each member of our society tangentially or directly. Many of the victims have not been identified and because the geographic footprint of this criminal enterprise; it is likely that the number of children brutalized by this perverse consortium could run into the thousands.
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![Rehtaeh Parsons, a teen from Nova Scotia, was a gorgeous, kind, straight-A student with her whole life ahead of her. On Thursday, she hung herself in her bathroom. On Sunday night, her family took her off life-support. Approximately a year and a half earlier, in November 2011, when Rehtaeh was 15 years old, she was reportedly gang-raped by four boys, classmates of hers. The trauma did not end there. One of the boys reportedly took a photo of the act and circulated it among Rehtaeh’s school and community where, as noted, by Rehtaeh’s mother, “it quickly went viral.” Authorities reportedly investigated the sexual assault but claimed there was insufficient evidence to make formal charges. Rehtaeh’s mother recalls the investigation: They didn’t even interview the boys until much, much later. To me, I’d think you’d get the boys right away, separate them…. Nothing was done about [the photos] because they couldn’t prove who had pressed the photo button on the phone. [She was told that the distribution of the photos is] not really a criminal issue, it’s more of a community issue. Even though she was 15 at the time, which is child pornography…. The whole case was full of things like that. We didn’t have a rape kit done because we didn’t even know (anything had happened) until several days later when she had a breakdown in my kitchen. She was trying to keep it to herself. Tormented and bullied, Rehtaeh was forced to leave her school and tried to start fresh in a new community. Despite efforts, she continued to struggle, at one point checking into a hospital to cope with suicidal thoughts, anger, and depression. In an extensive post on a Facebook memorial page, her mother Leah Parsons described how the straight-A high school student became depressed and suicidal after the incident. “The person Rehtaeh once was all changed one dreaded night in November 2011. She went with a friend to another’s home. In that home she was raped by four young boys . . . one of those boys took a photo of her being raped and decided it would be fun to distribute the photo to everyone in Rehtaeh’s school and community where it quickly went viral,” Leah Parsons wrote. “Because the boys already had a ‘slut’ story, the victim of the rape Rehtaeh was considered a slut. “This day changed the lives of our family forever.” Rehtaeh, who was a 15-year-old high school student in Cole Harbour at the time, was repeatedly bullied at school and “suddenly shunned by almost everyone she knew.” “She was never left alone. She had to leave the community. Her friends turned against her. People harassed her. Boys she didn’t know started texting her and Facebooking her asking her to have sex with them. It just never stopped,” her mother told CBC.](http://ayannanahmias.files.wordpress.com/2013/04/rehtaeh-parsons-17-canadian-rape-victim-commits-suicide-3.jpg?w=45&h=45&crop=1){kind=small}
22/12/2011 at 01:28
Dr Brian Neil Talarico North Bay Has been convicted of child molestation, an
possession of child pornography on his computer. Sexually molesting a young
boy. He had prior convictions for child molestation in 1990 and 2001. After
his parole in 2006. Dr. Talarico Brian. Works for north east mental health
centre, despite his background, and numerous complaints against him of
abuse, fraud, negligence, and imprisonment. Address: North East Mental Health
Centre North Bay Campus Highway 11 North North Bay Ontario P1B 8L1, and now
works for Act 2, North Bay.
22/12/2011 at 13:05
Indeed it is appalling to me that sex offenders receive less time in jail than petty drug dealers. There is something egregiously wrong with the penal system with regard to these perpetrators. In researching Dr. Talarico I found another forum discussing this same issue on Minnesota Public Radio. Interesting read.