6 men sentenced for child pornography ring

Ann Zaniewski | Detroit Free Press

Six men have each been sentenced to more than three decades in prison in connection with an international child pornography ring, federal authorities in Detroit announced Wednesday.

The crime involved more than 100 victims.

The men worked together from 2013 to April 2017 to lure juvenile girls to two unmonitored video chat websites where they sexually exploited them, according to U.S. Attorney Matthew Schneider.

"These predators committed truly horrific crimes against innocent girls, and they deserve decades in prison. Shockingly, some of these defendants have young children themselves,” Schneider said.

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The defendants are:

• Terry Kovac, 49, of Las Vegas, Nev., sentenced to 37 years in custody followed by five years of supervised release

• Felipe Dominguez-Meija, 31, of Springdale, Ark., sentenced to 41 years in custody followed by five years of supervised release

• Noel Eisley, 37, of Wappinger Falls, N.Y., sentenced to 35 years in custody followed by 10 years of supervised release

• Eric Robinson, 42, of Duluth, Minn, sentenced to 34 years in custody followed by 10 years of supervised release

• Bret Massey, 47, of Portland, Maine, sentenced to 32 years in custody followed by 10 years of supervised release

• William Phillips, 39, of Highland Park, New York, sentenced to 33 years in custody followed by five years of supervised release. The sentence will run concurrent to a sentence he received in a previous similar case.

Each man was ordered to pay $5,000 in restitution to each identified victim.

According to the Schneider's office, the men recruited the victims by pretending to be teenage boys who wanted to chat with them in real-time. Once the victims entered chat rooms, the men worked to build their trust and then convinced them to engage in sexual activity on camera.

They recorded tens of thousands of sexually explicit videos — which they shared with each other — of minors, some as young as 11 years old, authorities said. There were more than 100 victims. So far, the FBI has been able to identify 48 victims in the U.S.

The FBI’s Detroit Field Office and the Southeast Michigan Trafficking and Exploitation Crimes task force investigated the case.

Contact staff writer Ann Zaniewski at 313-222-6594 or azaniewski@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter: @AnnZaniewski.