COVINGTON, La., March 15 (UPI) -- An executive at a Louisiana beer distributor allegedly paid more than $750,000 to two Texas mothers to film their children in explicit videos, officials said.
Charles Edward "Chuck" Reese, 65, of Covington, La., was held Wednesday after being detained by U.S. marshals March 2 on a child pornography-production arrest warrant in Texas, The (New Orleans) Times-Picayune reported.
He was fired from his job at Champagne Beverage in St. Tammany Parish.
The FBI said an investigation began after the Web site Photobucket.com told the bureau a user had uploaded a video containing suspected juvenile pornography Sept. 12. The FBI said it located the subscriber, a 28-year-old woman in Vidor, Texas.
The woman died Jan. 15 at a Beaumont, Texas, hospital. The FBI did not provide details on her death.
The Times-Picayune said it did not identify the woman, or a second woman allegedly involved, to protect the identity of the children.
The FBI said the Photobucket video showed the now-dead woman engaging in a sex act with her 2-year-old son. It had been uploaded with a smartphone application, the FBI said.
Other explicit videos believed to have been posted by the woman were found on Photobucket, authorities said
Reese sent to a PayPal account belonging to the dead woman a total of $751,139 in 7,334 transactions from 2004 to 2011, the FBI said. The FBI said it also found Reese had wired through MoneyGram International $2,500 to the dead woman's adult sister and $7,900 to another mother in Texas, the Times-Picayune reported.
The other mother, the FBI said, told agents Reese had paid her to transmit sexually explicit images of her daughter, who is younger than 7. The woman said Reese had also ordered her to tape herself having sex with a dog while her daughter watched, the FBI said.
The Times-Picayune said the dead woman and the second mother were each accused to production of child pornography.
