Tips in child-porn case lead to area, Disney resort
By: Henry Pierson Curtis
The Orlando Sentinel
Feb. 9--A Walt Disney World resort is one of several locations where Internet pornography investigators in Canada and the United States think a young girl was sexually abused for profit during a trip to Florida.
"Our belief, at this time, is that it's the Port Orleans hotel," Jamie Zuieback, a federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman, said Tuesday afternoon. "I want to be very clear -- this is an ongoing investigation, and the information could change."
The statement was the first public confirmation that a Disney hotel was at the center of an international investigation attempting to identify and rescue a child portrayed being raped and molested in more than 200 snapshots sold to pedophiles through illegal Web sites.
The Central Florida connection became suspected last Thursday after edited photographs of the abuse were televised in Canada with an appeal to the public for help in identifying the background locations.
Hundreds of viewers responded, including two tips passed on to U.S. investigators who "confirmed the crime scene was located in a hotel in the southern United States," according to the Toronto Police Service.
Newspapers and TV stations in Canada and Florida quickly reported that unidentified sources claimed the hotel was the Port Orleans Resort, but it was not confirmed officially until Tuesday. On Monday, the Orange County Sheriff's Office opened its own case after assisting the investigation. On Tuesday, the agency said it was looking into the possibility that other locations are portrayed in the photos.
"We cannot rule out Port Orleans or other locations in Orange County," sheriff's spokesman Jim Solomons said Tuesday afternoon. "Obviously, this is a priority, given the nature of the abuse." Before the photos were televised last week, Toronto police digitally erased the images of the victim and her abuser. Those doctored photos included views of a fountain, elevator, bed and an in-room hot tub with a red cover that previous guests at Port Orleans recognized as the hotel where they stayed near Orlando. Zuieback praised Disney for helping narrow the time frame for when the child and her abuser stayed at Walt Disney World. Investigators suspect the child was abused over about three years, roughly from ages 9 to 12.
The Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement coordinates Internet-pornography investigations. A recent case, Operation Falcon, produced more than 1,000 arrests worldwide of clients of a Belarus-based Internet company with 50 pornographic Web sites. Belarus is in Eastern Europe.
"These individuals can no longer hide behind the anonymity of cyberspace," Zuieback said.
Toronto police could not be reached for comment but previously announced that they think that other photos in the set were taken in southeast Canada or New England, based on flowers and other clues.