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| Matthew Duhamel |
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| Charles Granere |
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During the period between 2003 - 2006, Matthew Duhamel of Charles Granere of Salt Lake City, Utah, formed and operated a number of child modeling agencies, until they were eventually brought to justice.
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| Billy Capps |
From 2003-2004, Duhamel and Granere operated a child modeling agency known as "A Model Shop." It's believed that Duhamel was the webmaster for the website, while Granere was his technical asistant. A Model Shop was however discontinued, when one of the photographers, Billy Capps of North Carolina, was arrested and convicted for child sexual exploitation. Capps was sentenced to 6 years in prison and 10 years probation.
Duhamel and Granere didn't let the arrest and conviction of one of their photographers dissuade them and they went back into business, starting a new child modeling agency known as "Flower Studios." This agency fared even worse than the first, within only a number of months another one of their photographers, this time Sheila Sellinger
of Shoals, Indiana was facing criminal charges (which she was eventually convicted of) for distributing sexually explicit material involving minors. Sellinger was sentenced to 140 months in prison and a lifetime supervision after release. As per previous, Duhamel and Granere decided it would be best to shut down Flower Studios too.
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| Sheila Sellinger |
However, later that year, Duhamel and Granere created a new child modeling agency known as "A Little Agency." Granere also established another agency entirely separate of "A Little Agency," called "Radiant Studios" (which he would later rename to be "Virtual Model Studios").
This was the state of the situation when they were busted: with Duhamel and Granere co-operating "A Little Agency" and Granere operating his side-project of "Virtual Model Studios"
"Federal agents call the child pornography industry a multiheaded
monster. Lop the head off of one site, and another springs up somewhere
else.
Money, officials say, and the dark appetites of countless faceless customers is what fuels this industry.
"This
industry is a huge, huge moneymaking industry," said special
agent-in-charge for the FBI Salt Lake City office, Bob Wright. "It's
making money through the exploitation of individuals."
If there
wasn't such a high demand, such sites would not keep popping up, Wright
said. "It's the sheer monetary benefit of it, which is a sad commentary
on society," he said.
Take the recent arrest of a Utah television
personality and his Orem business partner who were both charged last
week with operating Web sites in which people paid to download photos of
9- and 10-year-old girls dressed in scant clothing.
Federal
prosecutors said this week that Matthew John Duhamel, 32, also known as
Matt McCoy when he briefly worked as a weather forecaster for KUTV
Channel 2, and Charles Phillip Granere, 26, made significant money
operating such sites.
According to court
documents, Duhamel netted tens of thousands of dollars in less than
three months for posting provocative pictures taken by the parents of a
10-year-old girl. The documents show that the mother, who along with her
husband were criminally charged in another state, told FBI agents that
she was given a check for $17,000 from Duhamel for three months' worth
of proceeds from her daughter's racy pictures.
A statement sent
to the girl's parents by Duhamel in February 2005 indicated that
Duhamel's site "flowerstudios," which has now been shut down, received
more than $2,000 in memberships in a single week from a link to their
daughter's photo site.
Prosecutors claim Duhamel, who had
recently worked as a late-night talk show host on KPNZ Channel 24, had
about "six figures" in his bank account when he was arrested.
However,
the arrest and charge of the two parents last year sent shock waves
through the Internet underground. Messages posted on a discussion board
at a preteen modeling Web site "memorialized" the loss of the
10-year-old's "career" due to the arrest. "(She) was one of the fastest
rising new models in the industry due to her very liberal outfits and
poses and was a major threat to all competitors," the site states.
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| A Little Agency |
News
of the arrests caused many "models" to "retire" from their careers and
several Web sites to dry up. However, paying customers were offered
refunds and warned that if they paid by credit card, to expect to be
contacted by law enforcement.
One posting offered to transfer
paid accounts from "flowerstudios" to other Web sites offering similar
photos of barely dressed children.
U.S. District Court Magistrate
Judge Brooke Wells on Tuesday ordered Duhamel released from custody
under federal supervision pending the outcome of the charges. During a
follow-up hearing Wednesday, Wells also ordered Granere released. Both
men have been ordered to have no access to the Internet or unsupervised
contact with anyone younger than 18 years.
Federal officials said they could not comment on the case because the investigation is ongoing."
