A California man is set to spend the rest of his life in prison after pleading guilty to sexually abusing four children as part of his role in a child exploitation ring.
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U.S. District Judge André Birotte Jr. on Friday sentenced John Richard Brinson Jr. to life in prison, nearly 10 months after the 28-year-old Fresno man pleaded guilty last July to four counts of production of child pornography and one count of engaging in a child exploitation enterprise.
Birotte said Brinson’s actions were "evil."
"I don't know how else to say it," Birotte said of Brinson, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Central District of California.
Brinson and two co-defendants pleaded guilty to creating child pornography that showed them "engaging in sexual acts with or otherwise sexually exploiting more than 20 children" younger than 9 years old. Prosecutors said 10 of these children were no older than 4.
Officials said that between 2016 and '17, Brinson "distributed and advertised" child pornography "on a website dedicated to the sexual abuse of children" aged from "birth to 5 years old," according to court documents. Brinson's victims were between 3 and 9 years old, officials said.
"The depravity of this enterprise was reflected in today's sentencing," Eddy Wang, acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations Los Angeles, said in a release on Friday.
At least twice, prosecutors said that Brinson and Arian Harwell, a 27-year-old Hawthorne man sentenced to life in prison this February, filmed themselves in Brinson's home sexually abusing two minors together. Brinson also did the same with Moises Martinez, a 31-year-old San Jose man sentenced last September to 55 years in prison followed by supervised lifetime release, another time.
Brinson, Harwell and Martinez were all active users on the same website distributing depictions of child sexual abuse, which prosecutors said was hosted on the dark web browser Tor.
"The life sentence imposed in this case is warranted by the defendant's callous and violent abuse of children, some of whom were filmed while screaming in pain," U.S. Attorney Tracy Wilkison said in a release. "The child exploitation enterprise impacted more than 20 victims – children who were sexually assaulted, sometimes repeatedly, solely for the pleasure of this defendant and his cohorts."
Keith Lawniczak, a 57-year-old from Fresno, was sentenced in August 2020 to 12 years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release, after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. Lawniczak allowed Brinson to live in his home without paying rent, admitting he benefited from Brinson's residency because he could view Brinson abusing a child.
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