Man sentenced to life for online kiddie-porn message board

A Northeast Philadelphia man was sentenced in federal district court yesterday to life behind bars for setting up an online bulletin board to advertise kiddie porn.

After a three-day trial, Robert Merz, 45, who has been in federal custody since his arrest in March 2007, was found guilty by a federal jury in May of possession, advertising, receipt and transportation of child porn.

Authorities said Merz, beginning in 2006, started up an online bulletin board called "My Kingdom Forum" on which he advertised the posting and sharing of kiddie porn.

The board hosted more than 450,000 images and videos, which U.S. District Judge Juan Sanchez called a "staggering" volume of child porn, and included depictions of children under the age of 12 engaged in all kinds of sex acts, including intercourse and fellatio.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Roberta Benjamin said some of the images included toddlers who were required to comply with the sexual desires of the person directing their behavior.

Other images depicted sadistic conduct, she said, including bondage of the young victims.

Benjamin said Merz made it clear that a member of "My Kingdom Forum" had to be invited to join his exclusive forum and that a member had to continue to post child porn in order to retain membership.

The prosecutor said Merz knew that what he was doing was illegal because he provided members with security advice on how to avoid detection by authorities.

Sanchez said it was necessary to "incapacitate" Merz to prevent him from exploiting new child victims and because he had shown no remorse for his crimes.

Defense attorney Gilbert Scutti had argued for the mandatory minimum sentence of 35 years. "When is enough, enough?" he asked.

Benjamin argued that any sentence less than life would not be a just sentence, noting that Merz had been convicted of state child-sex offenses in 1986 and 1993.