Former child talent scout avoids prison

For his job as a South Florida children’s talent scout earlier this decade, Anthony Carlton Fonseca helped to recruit underage boys for photo shoots at various locations. But it was all a front for child pornography.

Shaking and weeping, the 47-year-old Jupiter man apologized Friday before Palm Beach County Circuit Judge Laura Johnson imposed a punishment that locks him up for three years but still keeps him out of state prison.

“There is no excuse for what I was involved in and for that I am truly sorry,” Fonseca said, adding later, “I am honestly ashamed.”

Fonseca, who early last year pleaded guilty to 15 felony counts, was ordered to serve three consecutive terms of one year in Palm Beach County Jail.

That will be followed by 12 years of sex offender probation. The first year of probation must be served on house arrest, Johnson ordered.

Prosecutor Justin Hoover had requested a fiveyear prison sentence and a decade of sex offender probation, suggesting a penalty that was less than the minimum term of nearly 10 years in prison under state sentencing guidelines.

But the judge agreed to a recommendation from defense attorneys Michael Salnick and Jack Fuchs — and the urging of Fonseca and his elderly parents from Pittsburgh — to keep Fonseca away from an arguably more dangerous setting in prison.

Johnson said she decided to give Fonseca a break primarily because of his cooperation with state and federal authorities in the 2015 arrest of a Vermont fashion photographer for distributing hundreds of pornographic images of children.

Fonseca was credited with being instrumental in helping investigators bring a case against Richard Emerich, 54. Fonseca said he was naïve and had succumbed to Emerich’s pressure to find local teens and pre-teens to photograph for both nude and clothed images.

“It was stupid, foolish and irresponsible of me to allow that to happen,” Fonseca testified, explaining that he’s been bullied and taken advantage of by other people his entire life.

After his 2013 arrest, Fonseca followed instructions from law enforcement agents to help nab Emerich. Fonseca persuaded the photographer to mail him a hard drive containing the images of underage boys, agents said.

As a result, Emerich last year was sentenced to about six years in federal prison, while Fonseca also helped officials with at least two other investigations, Salnick told the judge.

Hoover agreed Fonseca deserved a break in his sentencing because he was instrumental in taking a “dangerous child predator” off the streets.

Judge Johnson, citing the harm caused by Fonseca, warned him the probation requirements are severe, and any violations could subject him again to the maximum possible prison term of 115 years.

Fonseca was convicted of 10 counts of possessing child porn; four counts of promoting sexual performance by a child; and one count of online solicitation of a minor.

In exchange for the guilty plea, the State Attorney’s Office dropped 20 counts of possession of child porn, and three extortion counts that were tied to an allegation that Fonseca at times had used Facebook to threaten boys who sent him photos and videos of themselves.

The judge Friday also pointed out that Fonseca was not a first-time offender. In 2008, he pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor voyeurism charge. He allegedly stood on a toilet and spied on a teenage boy in the bathroom of a Delray Beach movie theater.