National Roundup

Maryland
Child porn purveyor to get 21-27 years under new plea deal
COLLEGE PARK, Md. (AP) — A man whom U.S. authorities have described as the world’s largest purveyor of child pornography would be sentenced to 21 to 27 years in prison under the terms of a new plea deal.

The deal between Eric Eoin Marques and Justice Department prosecutors is designed to satisfy a judge in Maryland who rejected their original agreement, which called for a prison sentence of 15 to 21 years.

Defense attorneys outlined the new terms in a court filing on Friday. They said a 21-year prison sentence would be “fair and just” for Marques.

Marques’ lawyers also urged U.S. District Judge Theodore Chuang to impose a condition of supervised release that would allow Marques to live in Ireland, his home nation, after he completes his prison sentence.
Marques, who was 35 in May, is scheduled to enter his updated plea agreement and be sentenced next week. Chuang isn’t bound by the sentencing recommendation.

During a hearing in May, Chuang described the initial plea agreement as “too flawed” and said he was inclined to give Marques a longer sentence than 15 to 21 years. The judge criticized a provision of the plea deal that wouldn’t give Marques credit for six years he spent in custody in Ireland while fighting extradition after his 2013 arrest in Dublin. Chuang said he can’t tell the federal Bureau of Prisons to refrain from counting those years when Marques likely is entitled to get credit for that time.

“It’s not going to be 21 minus 6 to 15. That’s not going to happen,” the judge said.

The new plea deal calls for Marques to receive credit for the time served.

Marques, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Ireland, pleaded guilty in February 2020 to creating and operating a web hosting service called “Freedom Hosting” on the darknet between 2008 and 2013.

The darknet is part of the internet but hosted within an encrypted network. It is accessible only through anonymity-providing tools. Marques’ service enabled users to anonymously access millions of illicit images and videos, many depicting the rape and torture of infants and toddlers.

Investigators found what appeared to be more than 8.5 million images and videos of child pornography on the Freedom Hosting server, according to a court filing that accompanied Marques’ guilty plea.

Marques was living in Ireland at the time of the offenses. He was extradited to Maryland in March 2019. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to advertise child pornography.

In an April court filing, a prosecutor said a government witness was prepared to testify that investigators had identified Marques as the largest purveyor of child pornography in the world and that he had made approximately $3.6 million in U.S. currency from his servers.

Marques’ lawyers say he made money from his legitimate web-hosting services, not Freedom Hosting.

“Though the contents of many of the websites it hosted were despicable and unlawful, the evidence shows that Freedom Hosting was a free service until just before Mr. Marques’ arrest,” they wrote in Friday’s filing.

Minnesota
Lawsuit: GOP donor offered money to hush girl he trafficked
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A prominent Minnesota GOP donor who is charged with multiple counts of sex trafficking  is now being sued by an underage girl who was one of his alleged victims.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court alleges that Anton Lazzaro’s attorneys offered $1,000 in hush money to the girl and her parents to keep them quiet and asked them to sign a non-disclosure agreement. The girl’s father refused and instead went to law enforcement.

The lawsuit, which also lists the girl’s parents as plaintiffs, alleges Lazzaro used his “power, wealth, influence, connections, and resources to recruit children ... so that he could prey on them. When it became clear that Lazzaro had committed serious crimes, he attempted to coerce his victims and their families into keeping silent.”

The girl and her parents are not named in the lawsuit.

Lazzaro was charged in August with five counts of sex trafficking of minors, one count of attempted sex trafficking of a minor, one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking of minors and three counts of obstruction. His attorney has said he is being falsely accused and did not commit the crimes.

St. Thomas University student Gisela Castro Medina, 19, the former chairwoman of the school’s Republican party chapter, also faces criminal charges for allegedly recruiting girls for Lazzaro.

According to the lawsuit, Lazzaro and Medina targeted young women or girls on social media and introduced them to Lazzaro to be used for sex in exchange for money and gifts.

The lawsuit says that in 2018, when the girl was about 14, she and Medina became friends. In May of 2020, when the girl was 16, Medina recruited her to meet Lazzaro and began grooming her, explaining that he was a powerful, prominent and wealthy businessman and political figure.

From May to July 2020, Lazzaro arranged for cars to bring the girl to his home on several occasions, and he committed “multiple commercial sex acts” against her, the lawsuit says.

After months of repeated sex trafficking of the girl, Lazzaro attempted to coerce her to be silent. According to the lawsuit, Lazzaro’s attorneys called the girl’s father in July 2020 and offered the family hush money and a non-disclosure agreement. The attorney allegedly suggested that the girl was aggressively seeking to defame Lazzaro and Medina on social media.

The proposed non-disclosure agreement says Lazzaro and the girl had “a consensual interaction in the recent past,” the lawsuit says. The proposed agreement offers $1,000, and in exchange the girl and her parents would agree not to publicly disparage Lazzaro or Medina. It also demanded that they “not disclose the nature of the prior interaction with Mr. Lazarro to the public” so he could continue his sex trafficking enterprise, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages, saying that as a result of the sexual abuse, the girl has suffered and will continue to suffer pain, emotional distress, embarrassment, humiliation, sexual confusion and other issues.