"Orchid Club" Indictments

A federal grand jury in San Jose, California, has indicted 16 people from the U.S. and abroad for their participation in a child pornography ring called the "Orchid Club," whose members used the Internet to share sexual pictures and conduct online chat during a child molestation. A U.S. attorney says there are no free speech issues involved: "The thing that ups the ante in this case is that allegations of distribution of pornography are coupled with serious allegations of child molestation. It's an issue relating to the protection of children, not to the First Amendment." (New YorkTimes 17 Jul 96 A8 - taken from Computer Underground Digest 8.58)

The 24 charges against the alleged members of an Internet child pornography ring include conspiracy to sexually exploit children. Tony West, prosecuting assistant and US attorney called the case, "very serious and tragic", saying that while the technology itself is not to blame, people will always find ways to exploit the Internet for such base purposes.

The defendants, who allegedly belonged to a private, online child pornography group called the Orchid Club, shared photos and videos of girls aged five to ten that they had taken themselves. According to the indictment, the men engaged in real-time photo shoots where they typed messages requesting photos of the girls in certain poses while one member shot photos with a digital camera and transmitted the photos back to the group.

Two men, Ronald Riva, 38, and Melton Myers, 55, were arrested in connection with the case in April after Monterey County sheriffs investigated a report that a young girl was molested at a sleep-over party hosted by Riva's daughter. The FBI and the US Customs Service joined the investigation when it became clear the photos were being transmitted across the Internet in the US and abroad.

The members of the club, who live in various US states and in Finland, Australia and Canada, allegedly had to know a secret password to access the photos and online chat sessions. According to the indictment, the men also had to undergo an initiation rite that required them to "recount a personal experience involving their sexual activity with a minor."

Three locked up in the US Orchid Club indictments involving child pornography - November 1997

Three members of an international child pornography ring that used the Internet to transmit pictures of children were sentenced to long jail terms by the U.S. District Judge James Ware in a San Jose courtroom after a long hearing in October 1997.

The U.S. Attorney's office in San Jose said Ronald Riva, 38, of Greenfield, California, was sentenced to 30 years in prison; David Tank, 35, of Cheney, Washington, to 19 years and 7 months; and Christopher Saemisch, 38, of Lawrence, Kansas, to 11 years.

The men were jailed for their part in a wide-ranging, Internet-based conspiracy in which several children, aged ten or younger, were used in sexually explicit acts to produce pornographic pictures and videotapes, the U.S. Attorney's office said.

The images, including digital pictures made with cameras connected to personal computers, were sent through the mail and transmitted over the Internet to other Orchid Club members in nine states and four countries including Finland, Australia, and Canada. Prosecutors said then they believed it was the first case involving real-time transmission of pictures of children being sexually molested to others online.

Riva pleaded guilty last May to charges of conspiracy to sexually exploit a minor, aiding and abetting in the sexual exploitation of a minor, conspiracy to traffic in child pornography, and sending and receiving pornographic images of children over the Internet. Riva also admitted he had used a digital camera connected to his computer to take pictures of the sexual molestation of a ten-year-old girl on April 1, 1996, prosecutors added.

Saemisch pleaded guilty to similar charges last May, admitting he repeatedly sexually exploited a five-year-old girl and participated in the April 1 online sexual molestation of the ten-year-old.

Tank was convicted after a trial last June of conspiracy to sexually exploit a child, conspiracy to trade material involving the sexual exploitation of children, and distributing visual depictions of children engaged in sexually explicit activity.

Evidence presented at trial reportedly showed that Tank produced sexually explicit pictures of children, including a different five-year-old girl, which he sent to fellow Orchid Club members.


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