SHREVEPORT, LA. - A man identified as being from Monroe was sentenced in federal court last week to life in prison for his participation in an international online child porn network.
John Wyss, 55, went by the pseudonym "Bones" on the members-only site Dreamboard, according to an indictment in U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana. He was sentenced Thursday, Sept. 6.
Evidence presented at trial in May revealed Wyss was a member of Dreamboard since January 2008 and made numerous postings showing he had produced and shared child pornography via webcam, including one video in which men engaged in sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls, according to a Department of Justice news release.
The chief of the Monroe Police Department says Wyss was a Monroe resident by mailing address only.
"Wyss didn't really live in Monroe," said Fred Kelley, who was not involved in the investigation. Based on Kelley's research, Wyss used the mailing address of a relative who lives in Monroe, and the offenses occurred in Louisiana and Georgia.
"My information is that he was for a time an over-the -road trucker," Kelley said. "Although they may list him as a Monroe resident, I think this is a stretch, as he only used a Monroe relative as a place to get mail, and never stayed more than a few days with them. From my perspective, he is a serial child pornographer, using only temporary places to stay to avoid being found out."
Wyss is one of 72 defendants in the Dreamboard case. The prosecution of this case results from an ongoing investigation of Dreamboard launched in 2009 under the name "Operation Delego."
Operation Delego is one of the largest and most significant investigations of its kind ever conducted in the United States. Wyss' life sentence is the third so far in the prosecution of Dreamboard members.
The indictment describes what Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer calls a "horrifying online community" that encouraged the creation and collection of images and videos showing adults molesting children.
According to the indictment:
The rules of Dreamboard, provided in English, Russian, Japanese and Spanish, required users to post pornography depicting children younger than 13 in order to become members and to keep posting regularly or risk getting barred from the site.
An administrator on the site specified a rule to "keep the girls under 13," adding, "in fact, I really need to see 12 or younger to know your (sic) a brother."
Dreamboard posted in categories, included one for pornography of adults having violent sexual intercourse with "very young kids" who were subjected to both physical and sexual abuse and in obvious "distress, and/or crying."
The indictment gives dates and names for about 70 porn files advertised on the site by those charged in the case. Many of the file names are graphic in their description, and several specify porn involving a "baby" or children "4 to 10 yrs old" (sic).
Wyss posted three ads on Dreamboard in December 2009, offering to distribute videos of child pornography.
Of the 72 charged in the case, 55 have been arrested in the U.S. and across five continents, including in Denmark, Ecuador, Hungary, Kenya, the Philippines, Qatar and Switzerland. Forty-one have pleaded guilty, and of these, 25 have been sentenced to prison for sentences of 15 to 37 years.
Seventeen of those charged remain at large and are known only by their online aliases. Efforts are ongoing to arrest these suspects, according to the Department of Justice.
Operation Delego found evidence that at least 38 children worldwide had suffered sexual abuse by Dreamboard members. Efforts to locate and identify victims are ongoing.
The investigation is coordinated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with assistance from the Department of Justice and Eurojust, the European Union's judicial authority in cross-border crime investigation. ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and suspicious activity through a toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE (347-2423).
John Wyss, 55, went by the pseudonym "Bones" on the members-only site Dreamboard, according to an indictment in U.S. District Court, Western District of Louisiana. He was sentenced Thursday, Sept. 6.
Evidence presented at trial in May revealed Wyss was a member of Dreamboard since January 2008 and made numerous postings showing he had produced and shared child pornography via webcam, including one video in which men engaged in sexual intercourse with prepubescent girls, according to a Department of Justice news release.
The chief of the Monroe Police Department says Wyss was a Monroe resident by mailing address only.
"Wyss didn't really live in Monroe," said Fred Kelley, who was not involved in the investigation. Based on Kelley's research, Wyss used the mailing address of a relative who lives in Monroe, and the offenses occurred in Louisiana and Georgia.
"My information is that he was for a time an over-the -road trucker," Kelley said. "Although they may list him as a Monroe resident, I think this is a stretch, as he only used a Monroe relative as a place to get mail, and never stayed more than a few days with them. From my perspective, he is a serial child pornographer, using only temporary places to stay to avoid being found out."
Wyss is one of 72 defendants in the Dreamboard case. The prosecution of this case results from an ongoing investigation of Dreamboard launched in 2009 under the name "Operation Delego."
Operation Delego is one of the largest and most significant investigations of its kind ever conducted in the United States. Wyss' life sentence is the third so far in the prosecution of Dreamboard members.
The indictment describes what Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer calls a "horrifying online community" that encouraged the creation and collection of images and videos showing adults molesting children.
According to the indictment:
The rules of Dreamboard, provided in English, Russian, Japanese and Spanish, required users to post pornography depicting children younger than 13 in order to become members and to keep posting regularly or risk getting barred from the site.
An administrator on the site specified a rule to "keep the girls under 13," adding, "in fact, I really need to see 12 or younger to know your (sic) a brother."
Dreamboard posted in categories, included one for pornography of adults having violent sexual intercourse with "very young kids" who were subjected to both physical and sexual abuse and in obvious "distress, and/or crying."
The indictment gives dates and names for about 70 porn files advertised on the site by those charged in the case. Many of the file names are graphic in their description, and several specify porn involving a "baby" or children "4 to 10 yrs old" (sic).
Wyss posted three ads on Dreamboard in December 2009, offering to distribute videos of child pornography.
Of the 72 charged in the case, 55 have been arrested in the U.S. and across five continents, including in Denmark, Ecuador, Hungary, Kenya, the Philippines, Qatar and Switzerland. Forty-one have pleaded guilty, and of these, 25 have been sentenced to prison for sentences of 15 to 37 years.
Seventeen of those charged remain at large and are known only by their online aliases. Efforts are ongoing to arrest these suspects, according to the Department of Justice.
Operation Delego found evidence that at least 38 children worldwide had suffered sexual abuse by Dreamboard members. Efforts to locate and identify victims are ongoing.
The investigation is coordinated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with assistance from the Department of Justice and Eurojust, the European Union's judicial authority in cross-border crime investigation. ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and suspicious activity through a toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE (347-2423).