Tampa woman sentenced for laundering $2.3 million in international "child modeling" websites
U.S. Attorney’s Office, Middle District of Florida
Tampa, Florida – On Dec. 3, U.S. District Judge Mary S. Scriven sentenced 53 year-old Patrice Eileen Wilowski-Mevorah, of Tampa to five years and three months in federal prison for her involvement in a money laundering conspiracy, connected with an international enterprise based in Florida that operated subscription-based sexually exploitative “child modeling” websites. The court also ordered Wilowski-Mevorah to forfeit $236,410.70.
Wilowski-Mevorah had pleaded guilty on July 6, 2021.
According to court documents, Wilowski-Mevorah laundered at least $2.3 million for the Newstar Enterprise - an internet-based business aimed at for-profit sexual exploitation of vulnerable children under the guise of “child modeling,” through a collection of websites called the Newstar Websites. Wilowski-Mevorah joined the Newstar Enterprise around 2009 and fraudulently opened payment-processing accounts and bank accounts under the pretense of a phony jewelry company. For 10 years, she routinely used the phony company’s accounts to conceal criminal proceeds from the Newstar Websites and transfer those proceeds back to principal members of the Newstar Enterprise. Wilowski-Mevorah continued to launder money for the enterprise until November 2019, when law enforcement authorities executed several search warrants across the United States and simultaneously seized the Newstar websites’ servers in the United States and Europe. Law enforcement officers then disabled the servers hosting the Newstar Websites.
The Newstar Enterprise and Status of Other Defendants
According to court documents, the Newstar Enterprise, founded around 2005, built, maintained, hosted, and operated the Newstar Websites on servers in the United States and abroad. To populate the Newstar Websites with content, Newstar Enterprise members sourced, enticed, solicited, and recruited males and females under the age of 18, some of whom were prepubescent, to use as “child models” for the Newstar Websites. Using the recruited child-victims, the Newstar Enterprise produced more than 4.6 million sexualized images and videos to distribute and sell on the Newstar Websites. Some of those images and videos, though non-nude, depicted minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. For example, images and videos sold on the Newstar Websites depicted children as young as 6 years old in sexual and provocative poses, wearing police and cheerleader costumes, thong underwear, transparent underwear, revealing swimsuits, pantyhose, and miniskirts. Most of the child-victims - recruited from Ukraine, Moldova, and other nations in Eastern Europe - were particularly vulnerable due to their age, family dynamics and poverty.
The Newstar Enterprise maintained a membership list for subscribers and customers of the Newstar Websites, which originated from 101 nations across the world. Images in the websites’ galleries were freely available to the public to preview, but greater access and more content required purchasing a subscription. The sale of purported “child modeling” content on the Newstar Websites generated more than $9.4 million during the course of the conspiracy. To process, receive, and distribute this money, Newstar Enterprise members fraudulently opened merchant and bank accounts in the United States and laundered proceeds using the bogus company.
Other Newstar Enterprise members included Kenneth Power (deceased at 58, of Weston, FL), a principal member of the Newstar Enterprise who directed and controlled its operations; Kenneth Power’s wife, Tatiana “Tanya” Power (41, also of Weston, FL), who is awaiting trial on money laundering charges in connection with the Newstar Enterprise; Mary Lou Bjorkman (58, of Lutz, FL) who recently pleaded guilty to laundering money for the Newstar Enterprise; and Anthony Lee Kendall (deceased at 55, of Mossyrock, WA), who was recently charged with laundering approximately $1 million for the Newstar Enterprise.
The defendants have also been notified that the United States intends to forfeit a total of $9.4 million that is alleged to be traceable to proceeds of the offenses, in addition to real property located in Florida.
“Wilowski-Mevorah was laundering money for a criminal enterprise that was sexually exploiting children.” said John Condon HSI Tampa Special Agent in Charge. “HSI is committed to working with our international law enforcement partners to bring anyone who targets or exploits innocent children to justice.”
These cases were investigated by Homeland Security Investigations in Tampa and the High Technology Investigative Unit of the Department of Justice Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), with substantial assistance provided by Homeland Security Investigations offices in Fort Lauderdale, FL; Athens, Greece; and the Hague, Netherlands; along with U.S. Customs and Border Protection in Sofia, Bulgaria, and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) Criminal Investigation in Tampa, FL.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Murray of the Middle District of Florida and Trial Attorney Kyle Reynolds of the CEOS are prosecuting these cases.
This investigation benefited from foreign law enforcement cooperation and substantial assistance by the Republic of Bulgaria, Supreme Cassation Prosecution Office and National Investigation Service; the Republic of Moldova, Office of the Prosecutor General and National Inspectorate of Investigations; International Legal Assistance Center (IRC), North-Holland Unit; the Czech Republic, Supreme Public Prosecutor’s Office, Czech Police and the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. The Office of Overseas Prosecutorial Development, Assistance and Training (OPDAT) provided technical assistance.
An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.