WESTON, Fla. — A Florida woman has been sentenced to 151 months in federal prison for her work for and support of subscription-based sexually exploitative “child modeling” websites, the U.S. Department of Justice has announced.
The court also ordered the defendant to forfeit more than $2.2 million and real property located in Weston, Florida.
According to court documents, Tatiana Power, aka Tanya Power, 41, of Weston, helped run the financial affairs of the Newstar Enterprise – an internet-based business aimed at for-profit sexual exploitation of vulnerable children under the guise of “child modeling” through a collection of websites called the Newstar websites.
Power served as Vice President and part-owner of Power Trading Inc., a Florida corporation used to control, operate and conceal the true nature of the Newstar Enterprise.
The DOJ said from January 2009 until November 2019, Power and her now-deceased husband, Kenneth Power, made more than $2.2 million from the Newstar websites.
According to court documents, founded around 2005, the Newstar Enterprise built, maintained, hosted, and operated the Newstar websites on servers in the United States and abroad.
To populate the Newstar Websites with content, Newstar Enterprise members sourced, enticed, solicited, and recruited males and females under the age of 18, some of whom were prepubescent, to use as “child models” for the Newstar websites.
According to the DOJ, the Newstar Enterprise used the recruited child victims to produce more than 4.6 million sexualized images and videos to distribute and sell on the Newstar websites.
Some of those images and videos, though non-nude, depicted minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
For example, images and videos sold on the Newstar websites depicted children as young as six years old in sexual and provocative poses, wearing police and cheerleader costumes, thong underwear, transparent underwear, revealing swimsuits, pantyhose, and miniskirts, the DOJ said.
Most of the child victims – recruited from Ukraine, Moldova, and other nations in Eastern Europe – were particularly vulnerable due to their age and socio-economic status. Law enforcement officers have disabled the servers hosting the Newstar websites.
To date, six members of the Newstar Enterprise have been charged in connection with the Newstar websites.
The defendants have also been notified that the United States intends to forfeit a total of $9.4 million, which are alleged to be traceable to proceeds of the offenses, in addition to real property located in Florida.
The cases were investigated by Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in Tampa and the High Technology Investigative Unit of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), with substantial assistance provided by the Criminal Division’s Money Laundering and Asset Recovery Section, HSI offices in Fort Lauderdale, Athens, and the Hague, U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Sofia, Bulgaria, as well as IRS Criminal Investigation in Tampa.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Murray for the Middle District of Florida and Trial Attorney Kyle Reynolds of the CEOS are prosecuting these cases.
This investigation benefited from foreign law enforcement cooperation and substantial assistance by the Republic of Bulgaria, Supreme Cassation Prosecution Office and National Investigation Service; International Legal Assistance Center (IRC), North-Holland Unit; and the Czech Republic, Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office, Czech Police. The Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs provided assistance securing foreign evidence and its Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) provided capacity-building assistance and mentoring.
An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.
