Hollywood Man Pleads Guilty to Directing Kids to Porn Sites
NEW YORK -- A Florida man pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to charges that he used misspelling or variations of well-known Web sites to direct minors and other unwitting users to pornographic content.
Briefly sobbing after he entered the courtroom, John Zuccarini, 56, of Hollywood, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Michael B. Mukasey on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Zuccarini admitted to 49 counts of using domain names to direct minors to nudity or sexually explicit content, each punishable with up to four years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The charges cover a four-month period this year, following the passage of the Truth in Domain Names Act, which took effect in April.
He also pleaded guilty to one count of possession of 12 images of child pornography on his laptop, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
As part of plea agreement with prosecutors, the U.S. Attorney's Office has recommended that Zuccarini face a sentence of 30 months to 37 months, or about three years. Sentencing is scheduled for Feb. 20.
Zuccarini, who owned at least 3,000 Internet addresses, was arrested in September at a Hollywood, Fla., hotel, where he had lived for about 10 months.
Prosecutors said many of the Internet addresses he owned resembled Web sites of interest to children. One example was
www.dinseyland.com.
Other well-known companies with Web addresses mimicked by Zuccarini's sites include Yahoo Inc., AOL Time Warner Inc.'s America Online division and Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswire and The Wall Street Journal.
Prosecutors said Zuccarini made between 10 cents and 25 cents for every viewer led to pornographic sites he worked with. He earned as much as $1 million annually, according to the U.S. attorney.