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  FBI NABS 2 in Internet Child Porn Ring
Magazine in Photo Linked Suspects, Baltimore Priest

By Karen Abbott
Rocky Mountain News (Denver, CO)
March 20, 2004

The copy of Parade magazine was an important clue.

It appeared in a digital photograph depicting child pornography, found by FBI agents in the computer of a Catholic priest in Baltimore.

The magazine cover helped authorities trace two members of an alleged child pornography ring that circulated videotapes and photographs on the Internet.

One alleged participant, Ron McQueen, a truck driver and married father of three from the town of Divide in Colorado's Teller County, was arrested there Monday.

McQueen appeared Friday in Denver U.S. District Court, on his way to a federal court in Texas where he faces felony charges of producing child pornography.

Federal agents spotted the Parade magazine among photographs and other materials they found while searching the rectory office of Thomas Rydzewski, a priest at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Baltimore. He was charged with possession of child pornography.

The agents also found a compact disc in the priest's office containing a video of an unknown man having sex with two young boys inside the cabin of a tractor- trailer, which someone else was driving. One of the boys addressed the person holding the video camera as "Kevin."

One of the boys also appeared in a digital photograph that included the Parade magazine lying on a table.

Parade officials, studying the photograph, determined it was the issue of Sept. 6, 1998, and that it was distributed with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Agents said they determined that the person who originally downloaded the videos and photographs to a computer was Kevin Quinn of Arlington, Texas, near Fort Worth, according to court documents.

His driver's license photo matched a man shown in the videotapes and photographs with the boys.

Quinn, who worked for a trucking company, was arrested in Mesquite, Texas, on March 9. Court documents said he admitted producing the videotape, identified the boys and told authorities the person driving the truck during the video was McQueen.

"Overall, Quinn admitted that starting in approximately 1998 and continuing for several years thereafter, he engaged in sexual activity with several male minors, who were typically in the 8- to 12- year-old range at the time of the sex acts," court documents said.

"According to Quinn, McQueen also engaged in similar sex acts with minor children and assisted him . . . in his sexual exploits of the children," the documents said.

Colorado authorities said McQueen was featured on the television program America's Most Wanted and that his arrest Monday came after someone who had seen the program recognized him.

 
 

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