Man sentenced to 9 years for role in Internet child porn ring

SAN DIEGO - A former real estate investor who traded child pornography over the Internet with pedophiles around the world was sentenced Friday to just over nine years in prison.

U.S. prosecutors had recommended that Paul Blazevich, 40, serve more than 33 years for his 38-count conviction. Judge Irma Gonzalez called that amount ''unreasonable'' and instead imposed the 110-month sentence plus $23,800 in fines and penalties.

After prison, he is to serve three years of supervised release during which he cannot own a home computer, use the Internet or be alone with children.

The National City man was one of 96 people arrested in 12 countries in a 1998 raid on the Internet ring called ''Wonderland.'' Authorities described the operation as the largest and most sophisticated of its kind, with membership restricted to computer users who had at least 10,000 images of preteen child pornography.

Blazevich, who was found with more than 40,000 child porn images, was one of 23 people arrested in the United States. Twenty-one of them pleaded guilty, only Blazevich and one other man were convicted at trial. Four suspects ended their lives by suicide.

Blazevich, whose wife suffers from cancer, asked Gonzalez on Friday to allow him to avoid prison in order to care for her.

''I want you to punish me, in fact, more severely than anyone you've ever punished but not through extra incarceration,'' Blazevich told Gonzalez. ''If I don't get out, my wife can't survive without me. There has to be an alternative.''

Assistant U.S. attorney Barbara Major noted that Blazevich, who had used the computer name ''Ponytails,'' had committed his crimes even as his wife's cancer worsened, going so far as to photograph his own teen-age daughter and stepdaughter.

Blazevich ''was spending hours and hours every day on his computer talking about kiddie porn, analyzing kiddie porn and joking about the victims,'' she said.

As Gonzalez announced that Blazevich's wife likely would not live to see him released from prison, Blazevich lowered his head into his folded arms, then appeared to wipe away tears.

His attorney, William Braniff, said he was pleased the judge had been willing to look at the prosecutor's recommendation and ''arrive at a sentence that was more in line with the nature of the crime and society's needs.''

Braniff, however, said he would file an appeal challenging authorities' ability to execute a general search warrant that allows them to seize computers without specifying what they are searching for.

Major said the government was considering an appeal of the sentence, which she called too lenient.

Some observers in the courtroom also expressed disappointment. Blazevich's former wife, who declined to give her name, said nine years was not enough.

''He didn't kill anyone, but at the same time the people he affected were thousands,'' she said.

Edward Logan, U.S. Customs' special agent in charge for San Diego, said investigators had identified some of the victims in the images and hoped Blazevich would help them to find others who may be in need of counseling and whose parents should be notified.

Many of the images confiscated in the raid showed the ''outrageous and heinous rapes of children.''

The ''Wonderland'' ring is ''the largest we've ever seen,'' he said.

''I think it's surprising to law enforcement and the public that there's this underground traffic in the misery of kids.''