He said he knows of two girls who started out as teen “models” on such Web sites that graduated into adult pornography after they turned 18. He also said that while some defend the “modeling” sites as harmless, they desensitize the young girls to sex. “Just winning a case is not going to affect anything unless this brings to light what’s going on,” said Austen, who also runs the Thursday’s Child hot line for teenage runaways. No matter the outcome of the criminal case, it will do little to discourage other operators unless it leads to new legislation with clearer strictures against risqué photos of minors, said Don Austen, who has been active in pressuring ISPs to drop clients running preteen and teen modeling sites. “For the defense point of view, the argument is, ‘Here is real child pornography, and that is not what this child is doing,’” he said. “That’s one of the things that is more persuasive to juries, a sense of exploitation of these girls,” he said.įor the defense, he said, the argument likely will hearken back to the late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s oft-repeated comment about 'hard-core' pornography: “I know it when I see it.” “… From what I’ve seen, there’s too much gray area there in terms of persuading a jury that the photographs actually constitute child pornography.”īut he said that the “financial piece” - the fact that Webe Web charged customers $20 a month to subscribe to each girl’s Web site - may help the prosecution overcome that obstacle. “It quickly gets into a legal gray area, like parents taking photos of their kids, so prosecutors have been reluctant to use it as a tool,” he said. Two Utah men, Matthew Duhamel and Charles Granere, are facing federal child pornography charges for a child modeling site that featured minors in lingerie.īut Frederick Lane, a lawyer who specializes in Internet issues and author of 'Obscene Profits: The Entrepreneurs of Pornography in the Cyber Age,' said it is an open question whether the hardball legal tactic will prove effective. The filing of criminal charges against Webe Web is at least the second federal criminal case brought against operators of Web sites featuring minors in provocative poses. Some are posed with facial expressions and in positions that suggest a willingness to engage in sexual activity.”įoley resigned from Congress in September after it was reported that he exchanged inappropriate e-mails with a teenage page. “The children are dressed in underwear, adult lingerie, high heels, etc., and placed in sexually suggestive poses which focus the viewer's attention on the genital or pubic area. “There are no semi-nude or nude images,” she said. No nudity, but ‘sexually suggestive poses’

In an e-mail interview, Martin told that prosecutors will press charges against the defendants for photos showing the young girls scantily clothed but not nude under a federal statute that deems images that “show lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area” to be child pornography. “Here lewd has met lucrative, and exploitation of a child’s innocence equals profits.” Martin said in a statement announcing the indictments and the closure of all the Webe Web sites. “The images charged are not legitimate child modeling, but rather lascivious poses one would expect to see in an adult magazine,” U.S. Authorities said Pierson is cooperating with prosecutors. Photographer Jeff Pierson of Brookwood, Ala., also was charged with two counts of using a computer to “transport child pornography in interstate commerce” from January 2003 through 2004.

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