Saturday, Jul. 18, 2009

Granite City MySpace sex offender gets life plus 10 years

East St. Louis man convicted of making child porn

A registered sex offender from Granite City, who is believed to be the first sex offender in the country to be charged with new offenses stemming from subscriber information disclosed by the social networking Web site MySpace, was sentenced Friday to life plus 10 years in prison for producing child pornography.

A federal jury in East St. Louis convicted Carl Courtright III, 37, of producing and possessing child pornography, as well as one count of bank fraud, according to A. Courtney Cox, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Illinois.

In 2007, law enforcement agents discovered that Courtright had produced child pornography using a local victim, downloaded and possessed child pornography on two computers and engaged in bank fraud.

Evidence presented at trial revealed that Courtright had caused a local female child to engage in sexually explicit conduct and photographed the activity. He also downloaded pornographic videos and photographs of prepubescent children being raped by adult males.

The bank fraud scheme involved Courtright's production of counterfeit checks, which he deposited into a Regions Bank account as "donations" to an online ministry he maintained.

In May 2007, attorneys general throughout the country, including Illinois, began issuing subpoenas to MySpace for the names of any registered sex offenders who had pages on the Internet-based social network.

The Internet provided address for Courtright, who was charged in 1999 with child pornography and sexual assault, led investigators to the discovery that his computer was linked to evidence of child pornography being traded on the Internet.

The Illinois attorney general said in 2008 that Courtright was the first sex offender in the nation to be charged with new offenses stemming from subscriber information disclosed by MySpace.