A West Hollywood resident is likely to go to trial in March for allegedly being part of a group running an internet-based child sexual exploitation enterprise.
Jonathan Negroni Rodriguez, 36, is one of nine men indicted last month on felony charges of child exploitation enterprise, conspiracy to produce child pornography, production of child pornography, coercion and enticement of a minor and conspiracy access with intent to view child pornography. Conviction on those charges could lead to a sentence of between 30 years to life in prison.
Rodriguez was arrested by an FBI agent in October. He and the others charged have pleaded not guilty. The trial is likely to take place in Detroit, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. Rodriguez and others currently are being held in jail in Michigan.
The federal grand jury indictment states that the group’s members were spread across the continent. In addition to Rodriguez, there was one living in Ontario, Canada, and others in Swarthmore, Penn., Virginia Gardens, Fla., Hickory, N.C., Olmsted Falls, Ohio, Saginaw, Texas and Highland, N.Y.
The indictment alleges the men collaborated online on an unidentified website to lure teenage and preteen girls into a chat room and then “entice the minor victims to engage in sexual acts, and to lasciviously display their genitals and pubic area on web cam.” Last year they began using a private server and a website called Discord.
The intent of the men, according to the indictment, was to illegally distribute those videos on the internet. The indictment alleges the conspiracy dates back to 2012 and involved at least 50 children.
An FBI criminal complaint says members of the internet ring had specific roles. “For example, ‘talkers’ in the
group were in charge of talking to the girls to get them to engage in sexual activity. ‘Hunters’ were in charge of getting the girls onto Website A and alerting other group members to the fact that they had brought the minors to Website A. The ‘loopers’ would play a previously recorded video of a different minor chatting andlor performing
sexual acts in a chatroom. The ‘looper’ pretended to be the minor depicted in the video that is broadcast to the targeted minor victim as if it is occurring in real-time.”
The complaint says that Rodriguez was “one of the most aggressive members when it came to his interactions with minor females. He was primarily a talker for the group, but would also occasionally play the role of
hunter/linker.”
Court records says that investigators found child pornography on Rodriguez’s computer when they searched his apartment on North Orlando Avenue in West Hollywood in October, including a video of a 15-year-old girl masturbating.
Good, our community doesn’t need people like this residing here…