Update:

WORCESTER, Mass. — A Massachusetts man who chatted online with other men about their desire to kidnap, rape, kill and eat children was sentenced Tuesday to nearly 27 years in prison after prosecutors showed photos of a basement dungeon he built, a child-sized coffin, butchering tools and metal restraints.

Geoffrey Portway, 40, of Worcester, was sentenced to 26 years and eight months behind bars, just under the 27-year, three-month sentence sought by prosecutors. Assistant U.S. Attorney Stacy Dawson Belf said chats recovered from Portway’s computer show he solicited people for help to kidnap a child with the intent of raping, killing and eating the child. She disputed claims by Portway’s attorney that he was merely fantasizing and did not intend to do the things he described online.

Belf read from one of his chats and said Portway had assembled everything he needed to carry out his plan, except for a child.

“I want to eat … the two boys you will bring me,” Belf quoted Portway as writing. “Perhaps not today, but it will happen. That is all I live for. … I am serious. It is the only thing that gets me up in the morning.”

Belf said Portway “can only claim fantasy here because he hadn’t done it yet.”

Portway’s attorney, Richard Sweeney, called the room in Portway’s basement a “theater” rather than a dungeon, and said Portway used it as part of his “fantasy world.”

“He walked in there and he would do his fantasies, and he would do it in the privacy of his own home,” Sweeney said.

Sweeney said Portway, a computer programmer, never tried to put himself in a position where he would have contact with children and never “laid a hand on any minors.”

“In Mr. Portway’s case, there’s pornography, there’s a fantasy world, there’s no child,” Sweeney said.

Portway, a British citizen, faces deportation.

U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Hillman said he agreed with prosecutors that Portway should serve his full sentence before he is sent to the United Kingdom. Sweeney, however, said he has the right to seek to serve his sentence in his home country.

Portway was one of about 60 people arrested in an investigation of an international child pornography network that began in Massachusetts and has extended to at least a half dozen other countries. Belf said 167 children have been identified as victims and rescued during the investigation.

Portway discussed killing and eating children with men in Kansas, Florida and other states. He pleaded guilty to possession and distribution of child pornography, and solicitation to commit a crime of violence.

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Original Post:

The first pictures of a stomach-turning torture chamber where a British-born Massachusetts resident planned to rape, murder and eat children have emerged.

Prosecutors are pushing for would-be cannibal Geoffrey Portway, 40, to be put away for 27 years after he confessed to plotting the heinous crimes. He will be sentenced next Tuesday.

Photographs taken by investigators of Portway’s Worchester home in 2012 show an eerie staircase leading to a hidden basement room containing a ‘child-sized homemade coffin,’ a steel cage, handcuffs and a set of butcher’s knives.

‘Portway has pled guilty to some of the most vile and heinous crimes known to our society, namely participating in the sexual exploitation of young children through the possession and distribution of child pornography and soliciting the kidnapping of a child for the purpose of killing and consuming that child,’ federal prosecutors wrote in court documents, obtained by the Boston Herald.

The sentencing papers include frightening excerpts from online chats Portway had with like-minded child pornographers and potential killers, including Florida puppeteer Ronald Brown who planned to kidnap children he knew through his local church.

According to the Herald, Brown went as far as to send Portway a photograph of a young boy ‘with lines drawn on him to identify the different cuts of meat.’

The two chatted about kidnapping the boy, taking him to a rented house and eating him over several weeks before feeding the ‘leftovers’ to alligators. Brown has since been convicted.

In May, Portway pleaded guilty to solicitation to kidnap a child and to distribution and possession of child pornography. As a British national, he will likely be deported after serving his sentence.

Portway had numerous chats with individuals about a ‘mutual interest in abducting, raping, murdering, and eating children,’ an agreed statement of facts released by the U.S. attorney in Boston in May stated.

In July last year, federal agents searching Portway’s residence in Worcester discovered the terrifying locked dungeon in the basement of his home.

It contained a chair, television, and what appeared to be cable access to the Internet.

The room also contained the child-sized homemade coffin that had large speakers covering wire mesh at one end and an exterior locking devices.

They also found a steel cage approximately 3′ wide, 2′ high and 4′ long with multiple locking devices, and a steel table top with steel rings at six points, presumably for restraints.

Outside was a cabinet freezer, an upright freezer, disposable scalpels, butchering kits, and castration tools.

This dungeon was described in detail by Portway in recovered chats as a place he intended to use to keep kidnapped children while he sexually abused them and as a place to eventually murder and cannibalize the children.

Many of these conversations were accompanied by the trading of child pornography.

These chats also included images of children known to them, accompanied by discussions of desire to sexually abuse, murder and cannibalize those children.

As stated both in court filings from May, through his online chats, Portway solicited several people for their help in abducting a child, including Brown and another man called Michael Arnett of Kansas.

At least as early as 2010, Portway utilized Skype and other programs to communicate with Arnett, trading child pornography including images of injured, mutilated and deceased children while chatting about the sexual abuse, rape, abduction, murder, and cannibalism of children.

Over months, Portway repeatedly solicited Arnett to kidnap a child for him, with the intent that Portway would ultimately rape, kill and eat that child.

These solicitations for help in abducting a child included discussing real children, by name and photo, that Arnett claimed to know and have access.

In the chats, Portway and Arnett discuss different ways to kidnap children and the age range that Portway prefers.

During the time that Portway was soliciting Arnett, Portway had been told that Arnett had helped others with such requests before and that Arnett had experience with the abduction and sexual abuse of children. Arnett has since pleaded guilty in Kansas to the sexual exploitation of a child for the purposes of producing child pornography.

A forensic examination of the computers uncovered evidence of over 4,500 trades of child pornography between Portway and others.

Many of these trades involved Portway distributing child pornography to others based on their stated specific preferences, including images and videos appearing to depict dead children and the cannibalism of children.

‘Clearly, the facts of this case were quite disturbing and we are grateful law enforcement acted when they did,’ said United States Attorney Carmen Ortiz.

‘I hope that this case send a clear message that we will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law those who participate in these types of activities.

‘Even though criminals attempt to hide in the anonymity provided by the Internet, the Department of Justice is committed to aggressively pursuing them to ensure that there is no place to hide.’

‘An investigation that began in Milford in 2010 — expanded to Europe and beyond —has returned back to where it originally started: the Commonwealth of Massachusetts,’ said Bruce Foucart, special agent in charge of the Homeland Security Investigation in Boston.

‘Since we began this operation —Operation Holitna — a worldwide network of offenders has been, and continues to be,unraveled, including Portway.’

Foucart added,’Thanks to the determination of HSI, along with our partners at the U.S. attorney’s office, we have been able to rescue 160 children and arrest 51 perpetrators worldwide.

This was all as a result of the arrest of a Milford man, and subsequent advanced forensics of his digital media.

‘Portway’s guilty plea should serve as a stern warning to those inclined to abuse children or share images of child pornography: there isn’t a place in the United States, on the Internet, or the planet in which you are truly safe. We will investigate you, we will prosecute you and we will bring you to justice.’

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