A federal judge in Los Angeles sentenced a 34-year-old man to 25 years in prison Monday after he pleaded guilty to participating in the "Lost Boy" Internet bulletin board for posting child pornography, officials said.
The sentencing of Joshua Boras of Lapeer, Michigan, resulted from a joint effort of law enforcement agencies in the United States, Canada, Europe, New Zealand and South America.
Boras is one of 35 people internationally accused of posting child pornography on the Lost Boy bulletin board.
Court documents indicate the participants were men with a sexual interest in boys who established the bulletin board as a forum to trade child pornography. The FBI shut down the bulletin board three years ago, about the same time they started arresting the pornography ring's members.
Of the 16 defendants arrested in the United States, 15 have pleaded guilty or were convicted at trial, Justice Department officials said. One defendant died in custody.
The FBI was alerted to the Lost Boy bulletin board by Eurojust, a European Union law enforcement agency. Information from Italian and Norwegian authorities led to a North Hollywood, California, man who was communicating with an Italian citizen about child pornography and how to engage in child sex tourism in Romania.
Other members of the Lost Boy network were discovered in Belgium, Brazil, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, New Zealand and other countries.
The network was able to hide its activities initially through a vetting process. New members could join the group only after posting child pornography. They also were required to continue posting the pornography regularly or be removed from the board.
The members advised each other on how to avoid law enforcement detection, such as by encrypting their computer data and using screen names that concealed their identities, according to court documents.
Boras was accused of filming a sexual encounter with a boy and posting it on the bulletin board. He faces a lifetime of supervised release after he is freed from prison.
He pleaded guilty to one count of participation in a child exploitation enterprise and one count of production of child pornography.
Dozens of child victims of exploitation by the Lost Boy network have been found in several countries, the US Justice Department said.
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