Boyfriend, James Frazee is sentenced to life in prison while Mother, Patricia Podgajski is sentenced to 9 months + probation for exploiting her 15 year old daughter on the net

Woman in child porn case released
by Ray Kisonas , last modified February 06. 2010 9:21AM

A Detroit federal judge Thursday allowed the release of a Monroe woman who was charged with exploiting her daughter on the Internet by allowing customers to purchase provocative images of the girl.
Patricia Podgajski, 45, who was charged with sexual exploitation of children, was released from custody on a $10,000 personal bond, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.



She and her attorney appeared before U.S. District Judge Arthur A. Tarnow in Detroit for a bond hearing. The judge granted their appeal with conditions that the defendant must wear a tether. He also ordered her to stay away from computers and not have any contact with the victim, who is now 15 years old.

Ms. Podgajski's alleged accomplice and boyfriend, James Frazee, 52, remains incarcerated in the Monroe County jail while he awaits a hearing in U.S. District Court in Detroit on federal production and possession of child pornography charges.

Mr. Frazee is a registered sex offender for his convictions of sexually assaulting a relative younger than 13 in Alpena in the 1990s, court records show. He and Ms. Podgajski were renting a house on Winchester St. when the FBI took them into custody and seized their computerand other evidence.

Up to 500,000 images are under investigation. However, the U.S. Attorney's Office in Detroit said not all of those images are necessarily child pornography. It was reported Thursday that the images were all minors but that might not be the case, the office said.

The couple is facing years in prison if convicted for exploiting the teen victim whose provocative photographs have been sold to customers who paid to view those images on a Web site.

The FBI's investigation began in Tennessee and it led agents to Monroe. FBI reports said the pornographic Web site had been in operation since 2003.

Mr. Frazee is scheduled to appear in federal court in Detroit Thursday to face the production and possession of child pornography charges. If convicted, he could be sentenced to life in prison.
Ms. Podgajski is scheduled to appear in federal court for a preliminary examination on Feb. 23.

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her own Mother.

Police say the couple had explicit computer photos of dating to when she was age 8. All told, a computer recovered from a home shared by Podgajski and her boyfriend, 52-year-old James Frazee, had more than 500,000 explicit photos of the girl and other children, according to investigators.

Federal court documents say she helped her boyfriend -- a convicted sex offender -- sell child pornography on a pay-per-view Web site.

Frazee was being held Sunday in the Monroe County Jail on a separate state charge of failing to register his address with authorities as required as part of his parole as a registered sex offender.

A federal complaint charges Frazee with possession of child pornography and producing child pornography on the Web site.

Payments for viewing the Web site were sent to a Western Union office in Toledo, which a federal complaint alleges Podgajski would collect.

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A registered sex offender and his girlfriend, who have been living in Monroe, are being held on federal and state charges of operating a child pornographic Web site that earned them up to $1,000 a week, federal officials said.
James Frazee, 52, who was convicted of sexually assaulting a girl younger than 13 in 1990 and 1993, is being held in the Monroe County jail and faces federal prosecution for possession of child pornography. His girlfriend, Patricia Podgajski, 45, is in the Wayne County jail on federal sexual exploitation of a minor charges.
U.S. Assistant Attorney Louis Gabel said the couple had been operating a child pornography Web site involving a picture of minor. "They were taking pictures (of at least one) minor and selling those images over the Internet," Mr. Gabel said. "Some were wearing provocative clothing."
Michigan State Police Detective Sgt. David Meyer is conducting a separate investigation into alleged sexual misconduct with a 15-year-old girl whose images, police said, have been made available for sale on the illegal Web site.
"We're looking at sexual abuse," Sgt. Meyer said. "I'm still investigating that."
Sgt. Meyer said this morning that Mr. Frazee is on the sex offender registry for his convictions of sexual abuse of a relative in the Alpena area in the 1990s.
According to the Michigan Public Sex Offender Registry, Mr. Frazee was convicted of four counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct of a person younger than 13. After his release, police said, he became involved with Ms. Podgajski, who authorities say has relatives in the Downriver area.
Authorities believe the picture of the minor in question date back seven years. It is unclear what led them to rent a house in the 300 block of Winchester.
According to a criminal complaint involving the FBI investigation, the child pornography Web site was in operation from 2003 until this year. The report states that the investigation began in Jackson, Tenn., in December, when agents in Memphis executed a search warrant and retrieved a laptop computer from a home there.
Forensic reviews of the computer led agents to an Internet site that depicted victims in sexually provocative poses. The investigation involved companies in California and Chicago, and eventually led officials to investigate Ms. Podgajski in Monroe.
Agents acting as customers paid $100 to view the site. Authorities obtained a search warrant, which was executed under a sealed affidavit. That report has since been unsealed.
The FBI said the 15-year-old victim lived with Ms. Podgajski at the Winchester St. address. During the investigation, they said, Mr. Frazee admitted to agents that he operated the Web site devoted to "soft core" photos of the victim.
"Frazee said he created the Web site shortly after he met (victim) and her mother, Patricia Podgajski," according to the FBI report.
Members of the Web site would pay a monthly fee to view the photographs. He and Ms. Podgajski, investigators believe, would drive to a Western Union to pick up customer money orders. Mr. Frazee, they said, admitted he took sexually explicit photos of the victim when she was around 9 years old. For $350, he allegedly sent approximately 150 pictures of sexually graphic images on the Internet, the report said. The FBI said it recovered 500,000 images of the victim and other unidentified minors.
If convicted, Mr. Frazee could face life in prison based on the severity of the charges and his history. Ms. Podgajski faces 15 years if convicted of sexual exploitation of children.

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Two children, including the suspected victim in an Internet sexual exploitation case, have been removed from their Winchester St. home and have relocated to another community, court documents show.
"They are safe," said John Deku, a Temperance attorney assigned to their case at the state level. "I really feel for these kids."
Documents show that the 15-year-old girl and her younger brother lived with their mother, who has a different surname, and their mother’s boyfriend, convicted sex offender James Frazee, 52, who remains in federal custody in Detroit.
Charges against Ms. Podgajski include allowing a convicted sex offender to live in the house and failing to protect her daughter from him. The court alleges that the defendant had knowledge of and allowed many photographs to be made of the girl. Other charges outlined include allowing abuse of the girl "for a number of years in the house."
The documents allege that Ms. Podgajski could not properly supervise the children due to an alcohol abuse problem.
Judge Moskwa ordered the children to be released to the custody of their biological father, who is living with his parents in another community outside Monroe County. The suspension of the mother’s parental rights will last until at least May, which is the next scheduled probate court date.
Monroe attorney Michelle Duell is representing Ms. Podgajski in the state case. Ms. Duell said the federal charges will take precedent and she does not know if her client will attempt to regain parental or visitation rights because it’s too early in the process.

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How disgusting an animal he is. I can barely stand to look at him.

Frazee admitted to investigators that he took sexually explicit photos of the victim, beginning when she was 9-years-old, and sold the images to customers of the paid Internet site, the affidavit said. Now watch the lowlife plead not guilty! I'll bet money on it.

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Man faces life in prison over child sex case
A Monroe man faces a mandatory life in prison sentence after pleading guilty Tuesday in federal court in Detroit to sexually exploiting a child. James Frazee is to be sentenced Aug. 5.

The U.S. Attorney's Office said Frazee, 53, used a minor younger than 12 to take sexually explicit photos, which he distributed on the Internet in 2003-07. He also maintained a Web site with photos of the victim in sexually inappropriate outfits during the same period, prosecutors said.

Frazee was convicted in Alpena County in the early 1990s of first-degree criminal sexual conduct involving a child younger than 13; that triggered the mandatory life term for the latest offense. Patricia Podgajski of Toledo, who is accused of helping him run the Web site, is awaiting trial.

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A convicted child pornographer and rapist who sold sexually explicit photographs from an illicit Web site that featured his stepdaughter while they lived in Monroe was sentenced Monday to life in prison.
James A. Frazee Jr., 53, who ran the Web site and sold the images from a house on Winchester St., earlier had pleaded guilty in federal court to sexual exploitation of a child and admitted to a judge that he began the nefarious operation in 2003 when the victim was only 8.
The victim’s mother and Mr. Frazee’s girlfriend had been identified as Patricia Podgajski, 45. The couple and her two children lived in Monroe when the FBI raided the house in February. Ms. Podgajski also was charged for allowing the illegal operation to continue. She is free on bond and is expected to be sentenced Thursday in Monroe County Circuit Court on a conviction of child abuse, second degree.
Ms. Podgajski had been charged federally with allowing a convicted sex offender to live in the house and failing to protect her daughter from him. Her case has since been sent back to Monroe County and she pleaded guilty to the child abuse charge.
Because she has no criminal record, her maximum sentence is expected to be in the 9- to 17-month range. However, Mr. Frazee will spend the rest of his life in prison, a federal judge said. pleading guilty to the exploitation charge, Mr. Frazee’s sentence automatically became life because 20 years ago he was convicted of sexually assaulting a family member younger than 13 in Alpena. In 1990 he was sentenced to serve 6 to 20 years for that crime.
Once he was released, he made his way to Monroe where he took up residence with Ms. Podgajski and her daughter and a son, who was not involved with the pornographic website. According to court documents, Mr. Frazee told U.S. District Judge David J. Lawson in federal court in Detroit that he began his operation about seven years ago when he was contacted through the internet by a man from New York who wanted to buy child pornographic images.
“He offered me, like, $350 to take pictures of (the victim) in a sexually explicit manner,” Mr. Frazee told the judge. “So I talked to her and took -- took pictures of her. I asked her to pose…and some pictures were nude. I instructed her how to pose sexually…”
FBI agents investigating child pornography were led to the Winchester St. house, which they raided in February. At the time they confiscated provocative outfits the victim allegedly wore for the photographs and up to 500,000 computer images from the couple’s rented home. However,it was not determined exactly how many of those images were actual child pornography.
In a document described as a sentencing memorandum, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Mr. Frazee’s crimes deserved and required a life sentence. The defendant, the attorney said, was incarcerated for his original crimes and he received sex offender therapy while jailed. However, “it does not appear that he learned anything from treatment,” the attorney said in the document.
“Due to the Defendant’s pernicious behavior, a young girl was unable to enjoy her childhood,” the U.S. Attorney, Barbara L. McQuade, wrote. “The Defendant stole her innocence and forced her into deviant, sexual behavior. To add insult to injury, the Defendant memorialized the abuse and distributed her images over the internet. As a result, the victim will forever live with the knowledge that her pictures have been passed on for others to view. Sadly, the pictures documenting her abuse will likely circulate over the internet for decades to come.”
The victim in the case is now 15 years old. She and her younger brother are living well with their biological father in a Wayne County community. The two were represented by John Deku, a Temperance attorney who was assigned to their case.
Mr. Deku said the children had been attending school regularly since the incident and were involved in extracurricular activities.
“They are doing wonderfully,” Mr. Deku said. “Those kids are thriving.”

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A woman arrested by federal authorities in a child-exploitation case was sentenced yesterday in Monroe County Circuit Court to nine months in jail.

Patricia Podgajski, 45, was also placed on probation for three years by Circuit Judge Joseph Costello, Jr. She pleaded guilty July 2 to second-degree child abuse.

She and James Frazee were arrested after FBI agents seized a computer containing sexually implicit images from the home they shared in Monroe. Frazee, 53, who was a registered sex offender, was convicted of sexual exploitation of children in U.S. District Court in Detroit and sentenced this week to life in prison.

Podgajski was charged in a federal indictment for sexual exploitation, but the charge was dismissed.

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