Massachusetts- A former Bunker Hill Community College student once accused of running Internet sex sites featuring underage boys out of a Somerville apartment has been hit with a federal kiddie porn rap in Nashville, Tenn. Tim Richards, who was investigated by Massachusetts authorities for allegedly posting underage gay porn in 2000, was arrested in Nashville last month on child pornography charges, an FBI spokeswoman confirmed. Richards' arrest was part of an FBI round-up of men accused of running illegal kiddie porn sites, including some that, according to a New York Times report.
The Massachusetts Attorney General's Office five years ago investigated Nimenet, a business owned by Richards and former Boston University student Aaron Brown, after the Herald revealed the company was hosting several sites showcasing underage teens having sex. Richards himself starred in his own amateur porn site that linked to a site featuring nude pictures of his then-15-year-old boyfriend, the Herald found. Nimenet, which was run out of a Somerville apartment, no longer exists and no charges were ever filed in Massachusetts against Richards or Brown. The company removed several illegal sex sites in 2000 after the Herald revealed they included scores of pictures of naked girls and boys as young as 5, some of whom were involved in sex acts. Some of the sites were created in Seattle and as far away as Russia and were routed through servers in California. At the time, Brown and Richards denied knowledge of any illegal content. Neither could be reached for comment last night. The Times reported this week that Richards was arrested in a van in his Nashville driveway with a young teenage boy featured on a Webcam site run by Richards. The newspaper also reported that Brown and his new company, Neova.net, are under investigation for hosting illegal porn sites. The pair's names surfaced in a series the Times published this week about underage teens raking in thousands of dollars posing nude and having sex in front of Webcams. The clandestine operations, often run out of children's bedrooms, are similar to the types of Web sites discovered by the Herald being hosted by Nimenet in 2000.
