By HERMIA JEAN-LOUIS
Tears welled up in the eyes of family members of a 26-year-old defendant charged in Brooklyn Federal Court on Thursday with arranging for images of and profiting from child pornography.
The conspiracy charges against Queens bodybuilder, Keith Liwanag were read by Judge Cheryl L. Pollak at an afternoon arraignment. According to a prosecution press release, “Liwanag used a Facebook account to recruit women in the Philippines to engage in sexual acts with children in exchange for money, and to produce and send child pornography over Facebook’s private messaging service.” In short, he frequently kept in contact with the women requesting that they perform sexual acts on children, take videos of them, and made profits from these pictures and videos to make a “show.”
Liwanag, was arrested on Thursday after federal agents discovered the messages he sent overseas. The evidence against the defendant includes several messages asking a woman to abuse a six-year-old boy, another woman to sexually abuse her son and provide photos of the acts. In addition, there are 10 “recorded video conferences” of the defendant and these women showing the sexual acts being performed.
Court filings also said, “Liwanag wired more than $1,000 to the Philippines between March and October 2017.”
At the court hearing the the judge agreed to keep Liwanag under a permanent order of detention pending a plea deal. The government also said that Liwanag posed a “significant danger” and “flight risk” to the community. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 15 to up to a 30 years.
The case was brought to court by Project Safe Childhood using federal marshals, and state and local officials to ferret out and prosecute the exploitation of children and rescue child victims of this type of abuse.
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