Child-porn case ends with 21 convictions
Federal officials on Thursday wrapped up a long-running case that resulted in 21 convictions of men who were found to be using a child pornography bulletin board run by a Polson man.
The last defendant, Shawnston Beaudoin, 31, of Kennesaw, Georgia, was sentenced to 210 months in prison and lifetime supervised release by U.S. District Court for using an online bulletin board called Dark Moon that authorities found after investigating another online bulletin board called Kingdom of Future Dreams.
“The predators on these illicit websites glorified the sexual assault of little girls and encouraged each other to share images of this terrible abuse,” Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell said in a news release. “For the victim children, this trauma lasts the rest of their lives. Thanks to the great partnership among federal, state and local law enforcement, these criminals will be punished for their vile crimes and prevented from harming other children.”
Kingdom of Future Dreams was an invitation-only website where more than 40 members exchanged sexually explicit photographs of young girls from the United States and around the globe.
The board was founded in 2009 by Polson resident Paul Wencewicz, 49.
Wencewicz was sentenced in November 2014 to 220 months in prison and lifetime supervised release. He also was ordered to pay $29,859 in restitution.
The website was in operation until March 2012, when the Federal Bureau of Investigation searched Wencewicz’s home after 15 child pornography reports were made to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline.
An international investigation followed.
Investigators found that the bulletin board was housed on a server in the Isle of Jersey in the United Kingdom. Through cooperation with local police and British authorities, the United States obtained the board’s data, allowing U.S. federal agents to identify 13 defendants in the United States in addition to Wencewicz and conduct searches in New Jersey, Maryland, Missouri, Indiana, Virginia, Washington, Massachusetts, Kentucky, Arizona, Texas and California.
This investigation revealed that eight 14 Kingdom of Future Dreams defendants were also members of a second child exploitation bulletin board called the Dark Moon, which involved a highly complex encryption scheme. Agents accessed Dark Moon in 2013 and were able to identify more people involved.
“This collaboration of federal and state law enforcement agencies demonstrates the power of the [Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force] and the concerted strength we can bring to bear against these types of child predators when we combine forces,” U.S. Attorney Michael W. Cotter said. “These operations succeeded in bringing to justice a group of dangerous and sadistic individuals, some of whom had committed prior sex offenses against children. As a result of the operations, one threat against Montana’s children — and children everywhere — has been dismantled. We will continue this successful collaboration and our efforts to protect our children and our communities into the future.”
The Federal Bureau of Investigation, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, U.S. Homeland Security, the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, the Montana Department of Criminal Investigations, the Helena Police Department and Montana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force investigated the case.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office’s Criminal Division Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section Trial Attorney Maureen C. Cain and Assistant U.S. Attorney Cyndee L. Peterson of the District of Montana prosecuted the case. The Criminal Division’s Office of International Affairs also provided assistance.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.