A federal judge today sentenced a Portland man to 50 years in prison for sexually abusing his two young daughters in a live Internet broadcast to other pedophiles.



The 35-year-old man pleaded guilty in April to two charges of producing child pornography. Investigators determined he abused his daughters on camera. At the time, one of the girls was 2 years old and the other, who has special needs, was 10.



He was one of five pedophiles arrested in a national investigation of parents and guardians who sexually abused children in their care on camera. The government's account of this investigation, documented in court papers, offers a glimpse at an online underworld in which arrested pedophiles are quick to inform on others.



The Oregonian is not naming the men in an effort to prevent identification of their children, who are sex-abuse victims.



The investigation began in 2006 as undercover investigators in North Carolina monitored Internet chat rooms visited by pedophiles. They opened an online conversation with a Florida man, who broadcast live video clips of himself abusing his daughter.



Agents arrested that man, who told them he had watched a Texas man molest a young child as he watched and directed the abuse from Miami. Both men pleaded guilty to producing child pornography and were sentenced to long prison terms.



Investigators took the Texas man's screen name and chatted with a Pennsylvania man who had broadcast live video of him receiving oral sex from his 5-year-old daughter. The little girl told investigators that the man had abused her for at least a year, including a night in a New York hotel room in March 2007.



The Pennsylvania man, who eventually drew a long prison sentence, helped agents identify two other pedophiles with whom he had shared lives images of child sexual abuse.



One of the men he identified was a registered sex offender in Virginia. He was charged in March 2008 with producing child pornography. While in jail and facing a potential life sentence, the man hanged himself.



The Pennsylvania pedophile told investigators that he had watched the Portland man receive oral sex from his daughters and have intercourse with the 10-year-old.



U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones, who sentenced the Portland man, said it was one of the worst cases he had ever seen.



-- Bryan Denson

