Man behind world’s biggest source of child abuse
imagery is jailed for 27 years
Investigators found what appeared to be more 8.5
million images and videos on dark web servers created by Eric Eoin Marques
Associated
Press
Thu 16 Sep
2021 00.43 BST
A man
described by US authorities as the world’s most prolific purveyor of child
sexual abuse images at the time of his arrest in Ireland has been sentenced to
27 years in federal prison.
Eric Eoin
Marques, 36, created and operated computer servers on the dark web that enabled
users to anonymously access millions of illegal images and videos, many
depicting the rape and torture of infants and toddlers. Law enforcement had
never seen many of those images before finding them on Marques’ servers,
according to prosecutors.
US district
judge Theodore Chuang told Marques that his crimes were the equivalent of those
of a drug kingpin. “This crime was truly despicable,” Chuang said.
Prior to
learning his sentence, Marques apologised to the victims and asked for mercy
from the court. “I have destroyed my reputation and my family’s reputation.
Please give me a second chance,” he told Chuang.
The judge
agreed to recommend that the federal Bureau of Prisons give Marques credit for
eight years he has served in custody both in Ireland and the US since his 2013
arrest. The judge also ordered him to pay restitution of $87,000 to victims of
the child abuse images that he helped distribute.
Justice
Department prosecutor Ralph Paradiso said Marques created an online community
for sexual predators to anonymously abuse and exploit children and share the
horrific images that they created.
“They all
got together and they sexually exploited children,” he said. “They revelled in
that sexual exploitation.”
Marques is
a dual citizen of the US and Ireland, and could return to Ireland after his
sentence. “There is no one in this courtroom who is not repulsed by what
happened in this case,” said assistant federal public defender Brendan Hurson,
one of Marques’ lawyers. “He will not do this again, and he is remorseful for
what he has done.”
Marques
pleaded guilty in February 2020 to creating and operating a web hosting service
called “Freedom Hosting” on the darknet between 2008 and 2013. The darknet is
part of the internet but hosted within an encrypted network. It is accessible
only through anonymity-providing tools.
Investigators
found what appeared to be more than 8.5 million images and videos of child
sexual abuse on the Freedom Hosting server, according to a court filing that
accompanied Marques’ guilty plea.
Marques was
living in Ireland at the time of the offences. He was extradited to Maryland in
March 2019. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to advertise child
pornography.
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