A Pennsylvania man has pleaded guilty to using misspelled Internet domain names of well-known children's entertainment like Disneyland, Bob the Builder, the Teletubbies, and singer Britney Spears to lure children to porn sites. He also pleaded guilty to one charge of possessing child porn
John Zuccarini entered his plea Dec. 10 in Manhattan federal court and agreed to a prison term of 30-37 months under terms of the deal with prosecutors, according to Reuters, but the news wire added that the judge who will sentence him isn't bound by the deal and can order a longer term.
"Adult entertainment is by and for consenting adults," said Adult Sites Against Child Pornography executive director Joan Irvine, after learning about the Zuccarini plea deal. "Anyone who intentionally lures children to adult entertainment just for money should be prosecuted. The fact that legitimate adult site programs were paying for his traffic once again shows why it is so important for Webmasters to know with whom they are doing business."
Zuccarini's history includes being sued over 100 times by organizations like Dow Jones and the National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues for misusing domain names owned by them with similar purposes in mind. In the current case, he was arrested in September in Hollywood, Fla., at the hotel where he lived for several months.
But he's the first to be charged under a new federal law making it a crime to lure children to porn sites. Prosecutors argued Zuccarini admitted in previous litigation that Website operators paid him between 10 and 25 cents for all hits he sent to them, with Zuccarini claiming to have earned as much as $1 million for these doings.
Zuccarini said in previous litigation that he used domain names tied to sites popular with kids because they were more likely to make typographical or spelling mistakes than adults, and admitted to registering at least 3,000 domain names based on misspellings of legitimate people and companies, many of which were aimed toward children.
His domains brought surfers to ads for free porn access, showing numerous high-quality porn images some of which involved photos of younger people having sex.
Zuccarini's sentencing date wasn't revealed at press time.
