FACSAFoundation.org Shattering The Silence Tour Documentary Project February 2015 Volume 3 | Page 50

WHAT’S HAPPENING ON A LOCAL LEVEL

‘Operation Roundtable’ ringleader sentenced to 21 years after HSI
investigation
Jonathan Johnson operated 27,000-member child exploitation network, largest in
ICE history

NEW ORLEANS – An Abita Springs man who pleaded guilty last year to
operating a worldwide child pornography network that was the largest ever
discovered in the history of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was
sentenced Thursday to 21 years in federal prison for operating a child exploitation
enterprise. The sentencing follows an investigation by ICE’s Homeland Security
Investigations (HSI), the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and multiple U.S.
Attorneys across the country.
According to court documents, Jonathan Johnson, 28, admitted in his guilty plea
that he created multiple fake female personas on popular social networks and used
them to target children for exploitation by coercing them into producing sexually
explicit material. Johnson also coached other child predators in his inner circle how
to do the same. Two underground websites administered by Johnson operated as a
hidden service board on the Tor network that operated from about June 2012 until
Johnson’s arrest in June 2013, at which time the site contained more than 2,000
videos and had more than 27,000 members worldwide. Tor is an Internet network
that enables online anonymity by directing Internet traffic through thousands of
relays to conceal a user’s location.
The two websites operated by Johnson shared webcam-captured videos of mostly
juvenile boys enticed by the operators of the site to produce sexually explicit
material. So far, investigators have identified more than 250 minor victims in 39
states and five foreign countries. All victims have been contacted by law
enforcement and U.S. victims have been offered support services from HSI victim
assistance specialists.
Dubbed “Operation Roundtable,” the case against Johnson has thus far resulted in
ten additional individuals being criminally charged by the U.S. Attorney’s Office