Child abuse images earned host €3m
Irish man dealt in obscene sexual images of young children
Irishman earned around $3.6m (€3m) over five years by distributing millions of pornographic child abuse images and videos, prosecutors in the United States have revealed.
Eric Eoin Marques, 36, due to be sentenced on Wednesday and who will spend at least the next 13 years in a US federal prison, made the millions from hosting and facilitating the sharing of the content.
More than 1.5 million new images not previously seen during other investigations globally were discovered on servers controlled by him, the US District Court in Maryland will hear.
Judge Theodore David Chuang, in Baltimore, will be told that Marques was, at the time of his arrest in 2013, ‘the largest purveyor’ of child sexual abuse material in the world.
In pleading guilty, Marques agreed with prosecutors to a recommended sentence of 15 to 21 years, but the judge can decide to reject the agreement. The offence draws a maximum sentence of 30 years.
While the 15 to 21 year recommendition
dation does not include credit for the six years Marques spent behind bars in Ireland as he fought extradition, it was taken into account by prosecutors when calculating the offer made to the Dubliner. Following two years already in jail in the US, he will spend at least the next 13 years in prison.
Following his July 2013 arrest at a house in Mountjoy Square, Dublin, Marques spent years fighting extraAN before the Supreme Court finally ruled in 2019 he should be removed to the US.
He pleaded guilty to one count of advertising child pornography but admitted in his plea agreement to being at the centre of a network of thousands involved in sharing vile content of sexual abuse,.
In total, 8.5 million child exploitation images and videos were found, including 65,000 showing the sexual abuse of infants and toddlers, and 33,000 involving sadomasochistic abuse of children.
Prosecutors signalled their intent to reveal all details of the crime to the judge and the public.
A law enforcement official will reveal the number of new images uncovered by gardaí and the FBI, and how Marques made around $3.6m from when he set up the Freedom Hosting service in 2008 to his arrest. Details of how Marques planned to flee following his arrest and release will also be revealed.
Marques has agreed to forfeit $154,422 (€127,000) seized from bank accounts previously frozen by investigators.
It was previously reported he bought a €250,000 house in Romania for an ex-girlfriend. But the estimated total earnings have never before been revealed.
Agents managed to track down Marques by identifying a server he used in France and by following money routed through Las Vegas in Nevada to Dublin.
After his initial arrest and seizure of his computers, Marques was released. But just two days later, agents noticed he was logged back into the server and had locked out the FBI. He was re-arrested and spent the next six years in jail fighting extradition.
His defence team argued that Marques, diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome, would not receive proper care in the US.
The Supreme Court ultimately rejected the arguments and Marques was extradited in March 2019. He pleaded guilty in February 2020.
8.5million exploitation images found in total