N.J. Man Arrested, Charged in Child Porn Sting

NEWARK, N.J. — A criminal complaint was filed Friday in U.S. District Court against Richard Leitenberger, 40, who was arrested in late July by New Jersey law enforcement for possessing child pornography, after an elaborate sting by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.

Leitenberger was arrested at a New Jersey post office attempting to pick up the child pornography from his post office box. He confessed to ordering the videos on the site after being read his Miranda rights by officers.

According to the complaint, Leitenberger was targeted by the postal police because his name turned up as a customer of what the complaint calls an online "global child pornography enterprise."

“The investigation resulted in the identification of a company processing credit card transactions for subscriptions to child pornography websites,” the complaint alleges. “As a result of these searches, agents recovered customer records of individuals residing in the U.S. As part of the continuing undercover investigation agents subscribed to the websites related to these records. The vast majority of these websites featured child pornography.”

The sting began last fall when Leitenberger received an unsolicited letter at his home in New Jersey from a company known as JMG Products. JMG offered Leitenberger a catalog of kiddy porn films that were “taboo, very rare, forbidden and illegal material.”

Multiple letters were sent to Leitenberger offering child pornography on video, CD-ROMS and DVDs and purportedly included content with young boys, young girls and adults with children.

The complaint from the postal police includes alleged copies of Leitenberger’s emails to JMG’s Yahoo email account where he asked for videos featuring girls, ages 9-15. According to the complaint, Leitenberger then ordered nine videos from JMG and sent a money order for $180.

An online search shows that the undercover email address — jmgvids@yahoo.com — is still active and was included in 15 newsgroup postings between February and May. The postings advertise a collection of "hardcore preteen" videos.

Leitenberger will be arraigned, but no court date has yet been given.

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