Man Admits Luring Children to Porn Sites
Wed December 10, 2003 02:46 PM ET
By Gail Appleson

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A Pennsylvania man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to 49 federal charges he used misspellings of Internet domain names like Disneyland, Teletubbies, and Britney Spears to lure children to pornographic Web sites.

John Zuccarini, 56, broke down in tears before admitting that he intentionally deceived minors into logging onto adult sites containing graphic sexual scenes. Zuccarini also pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography.

Under a plea deal reached with Manhattan federal prosecutors, Zuccarini agreed to serve a prison term of 30 to 37 months. However, the judge who will sentence Zuccarini is not bound by the agreement and can impose a different term.

The defendant was arrested in September at a Hollywood, Florida hotel where he had been living for several months.

Zuccarini, who was sued over 100 times by such organizations as Dow Jones and The National Association of Professional Baseball Leagues for misusing their domain names, was the first person charged under a new federal law making it a crime to attract children to X-rated Internet sites.

Prosecutors said that he had admitted in previous private litigation that Web site operators paid him between 10 and 25 cents for every hit he brought them. They said Zuccarini claimed he made as much as $1 million from these payments.

He admitted in the civil cases that he registered domain names of Web sites popular with children partially because they are more likely than adults to make spelling errors on Web site addresses, prosecutors said.

Zuccarini admitted carrying out his scheme by registering at least 3,000 domain names based on misspellings of legitimate companies and individuals. A very large percentage of those names were geared toward children.

For example, he registered the Internet domain name www.dinseyland.com, a misspelling of Disneyland. He also registered 16 variations of the legitimate site operated by singer Britney Spears.

Other addresses included www.bobthebiulder.com and www.teltubies.com. These are misspellings of the cartoon characters Bob the Builder and Teletubbies.

Typing in Zuccarini's domain names connected users to ads for free access to pornography. The ads showed numerous high-quality images of hard-core pornography including explicit photographs of young people having sex.

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Source: Reuters