TORONTO, March 14 (UPI) -- An international child pornography investigation entangled victims of credit card theft in false accusations, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reports.
Others were charged because they had bought adult pornography legally from a Web site that also trafficked in child pornography. The CBC said that there has been at least one suicide in Canada by a man who was never formally charged.
The investigation began in 1999 when police shut down a Texas company, Landslide Productions, and seized a database with the names of more than 100,000 customers.
While many of those arrested were pedophiles, others were not. An English doctor lost his job for good even though he proved that he was the victim of an identity theft.
James LeCaw of Toronto killed himself 15 months after he was publicly branded as a pedophile. Although the charge against him was dropped, he had lost his job and his friends.
Fewer people were charged in the United States. While there were 35,000 names of U.S. residents in the Landslide data base, police set up a sting operation and charged only those who responded, about 200.
