Man again receives life for distributing pornography
Source: Star-Telegram
By Toni Heinzl
Date: May 14, 2003
The founder of a Fort Worth corporation prosecuted in the largest Internet child pornography investigation to date was
sentenced for a second time to life in prison Monday. Thomas Reedy, 40, founder and president of now-defunct Landslide
Productions, had hoped for more leniency after the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in October that his original
sentence was too harsh.In August 2001, U.S. District Judge Terry Means sentenced Reedy to 1,335 years in federal prison
and his wife, Janice Reedy, to 14 years for her role as the company's bookkeeper. The federal prison system has no parole.
The Reedys were convicted of conspiring to transport and distribute child pornography in interstate commerce and of
charges related to sexual exploitation of minors. Thomas Reedy was convicted on all 89 counts as charged, his wife on 87
counts.
The sites, with names such as "Child Rape" and "Children Forced to Porn," were maintained by three foreign webmasters from Russia and Indonesia who were indicted as co-conspirators and business partners with the Reedys, but remain at large.
In its Oct. 16 ruling, the New Orleans-based appeals court clarified how child pornographic images should be counted for sentencing purposes in the 5th Circuit, which encompasses Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
The appeals directed Means to group images by Web site for one consolidated count per site rather than counting individual images.
Means followed that direction and sentenced Thomas Reedy to 15 years each on 12 counts, all to be served consecutively. The 180-year sentence means that Reedy will live out his days behind bars at a federal prison in Beaumont. Means resentenced Janice Reedy last month to 14 years. She is serving her sentence at the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth.
Houston attorney Steven Rozan, who represented the couple for their appeals, downplayed the central element of the government's case that the Reedys used their Web site as a pay-per-view portal to the illegal child porn sites maintained by the foreign webmasters.
Reedy's appearance was a visual reminder of his fall from ill-gained wealth. The former executive, a balding, bespectacled man, was wearing a blue jacket over an ill-fitting orange prison jumpsuit with the pants' seams dangling to the floor.
His former company netted more than $1.3 million from the child porn business in a little more than two years, prosecutors said. According to auditor reports, the couple made an additional $1.7 million in the same time period from Web sites posting legal adult pornography.
The couple, both from humble backgrounds, lived in a $425,000 mansion and owned two new Mercedes-Benz cars. Prosecutors said their wealth, to a large degree, was earned from the misery of children who were photographed and videotaped while being molested by adults. Landslide customers paid up to $39.95 in monthly subscriber fees per site.
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