Marc Collins-Rector | |
---|---|
Born | Mark John Rector October 16, 1959 |
Other names | Mark Collins Morgan Von Phoenix |
Occupation | Businessman |
Marc John Collins-Rector (born October 16, 1959) is an American-born businessman, convicted sex offender, known for founding Digital Entertainment Network, an online streaming video broadcaster and notable dot-com failure, as well as his associations with Hollywood and media figures. His child sexual abuse conviction is highlighted in the 2014 documentary An Open Secret .
Collins-Rector was born Mark John Rector. He changed his name to Marc Collins-Rector in 1998. [1] [2]
In the early 1980s, Rector founded Telequest, a Florida-based telecommunications company. In 1984, he founded World TravelNet, a company which electronically coordinated cruises and tours; its affiliate, World ComNet, was floated on the Vancouver Stock Exchange in 1987. Its valuation briefly peaked at $100 million before increasing competition led to bankruptcy. [1] Rector later founded an early ISP; Concentric Network, [3] in 1991 [4] along with partner Chad Shackley. [5]
Rector and Shackley sold Concentric in 1995 and, using money raised from the sale, as well as close to $100 million of investor and venture capital, formed an early Internet video media content delivery company, Digital Entertainment Network. Collins-Rector was the co-founder and chairman of DEN, which exhausted its funding following a failed IPO bid and collapsed amidst allegations of Collins-Rector having sexually abused boys, coercing them with drugs and guns. [6]
Collins-Rector and his business partners, Chad Shackley and Brock Pierce, operated DEN out of a Los Angeles mansion. There, they held parties attended by Hollywood's gay A-list. [2] At those parties, Collins-Rector and others were alleged to have engaged in sexual assaults against teenaged boys. [7]
In August 2000, a New Jersey federal grand jury indicted Collins-Rector on criminal charges that he had transported minors across state lines for the purpose of having sex with them. [8] After his indictment, Collins-Rector fled to Spain together with Shackley and Pierce. Interpol arrested the three men on May 17, 2002, in a house in the Spanish city of Marbella. Shackley and Pierce were released without being criminally charged. [2] Guns, machetes and child pornography were found in the house. [7]
Collins-Rector fought extradition proceedings for two years before returning to the United States, where he pleaded guilty to eight charges of child enticement and registered as a sex offender. [9] He admitted luring five minors across state lines for sexual purposes. [10] He received credit for time that he had served in a Spanish jail and was registered as a sex offender under a weekly supervision. [10]
In 2006, a U.S. District Court granted Collins-Rector special permission to go to the United Kingdom to receive treatment for a brain tumor. [11] He subsequently renounced his US citizenship and has never returned to the United States. [12] In 2007, he was photographed in London, and in 2008 was living in the Dominican Republic. [13] As of 2014 [update] , he lives in Antwerp and uses the names "Mark Collins" and "Morgan Von Phoenix". [2]
News reports have stated that Collins-Rector was a silent partner in the MMORPG service company IGE, which was founded by ex-DEN VP Brock Pierce - who was chairman of the Bitcoin Foundation. [6] [14] IGE initially used an address in the city of Marbella, Spain, where Collins-Rector, Shackley and Pierce shared a villa until it was raided by Interpol in 2002. [15] [16]
Child sex tourism (CST) is tourism for the purpose of engaging in the prostitution of children, which is commercially facilitated child sexual abuse. The definition of child in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is "every human being below the age of 18 years". Child sex tourism results in both mental and physical consequences for the exploited children, which may include sexually transmitted infections, "drug addiction, pregnancy, malnutrition, social ostracism, and death", according to the State Department of the United States. Child sex tourism, part of the multibillion-dollar global sex tourism industry, is a form of child prostitution within the wider issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children. Child sex tourism victimizes approximately 2 million children around the world. The children who perform as prostitutes in the child sex tourism trade often have been lured or abducted into sexual slavery.
IGE is a company that trades in virtual currency and accounts for MMORPGs. The company sold virtual goods for real money in more than a dozen popular games. Members of the gaming community were often critical of IGE, as its services were against the rules of the games, though not illegal by the laws of the real countries in which the games would operate.
Bryan Jay Singer is an American filmmaker. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and has produced almost all of the films he has directed.
A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a sexual nature; however, some sex offenders have simply violated a law contained in a sexual category. Some of the serious crimes which usually result in a mandatory sex-offender classification are sexual assault, statutory rape, bestiality, child sexual abuse, incest, rape, and sexual imposition.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command, or CEOP Command, is a command of the UK's National Crime Agency (NCA), and is tasked to work both nationally and internationally to bring online child sex offenders, including those involved in the production, distribution and viewing of child abuse material, to the UK courts. The centre was formed in April 2006 as the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre, and was absorbed into the NCA on 7 October 2013 by the Crime and Courts Act 2013.
Brock Jeffrey Pierce is an American entrepreneur known primarily for his work in the cryptocurrency industry. As a child actor, he starred in the Disney films The Mighty Ducks (1992), D2: The Mighty Ducks (1994), and First Kid (1996). He ran as an independent candidate in the 2020 United States presidential election.
Pedophilia is a psychiatric disorder in which an adult or older adolescent experiences a primary or exclusive sexual attraction to prepubescent children. Although girls typically begin the process of puberty at age 10 or 11, and boys at age 11 or 12, psychiatric diagnostic criteria for pedophilia extend the cut-off point for prepubescence to age 13. People with the disorder are often referred to as pedophiles.
Digital Entertainment Network was a multimedia dot-com company founded in the late-1990s by Marc Collins-Rector and his partner, Chad Shackley. Rector and Shackley had sold their ISP, Concentric Network, and used the proceeds of that sale, along with additional investor funding, to launch DEN. In February 1999, Jim Ritts resigned as commissioner of the LPGA to become chairman of DEN.
Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assault against a small child, whereas sexual abuse is a term used for a persistent pattern of sexual assaults.
Christopher Paul Neil, also known as Mr. Swirl, Swirl Face, or Vico, is a Canadian child molester. He was the subject of a highly publicized Interpol investigation of the sexual abuse of at least 12 young boys in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand, primarily owing to the Internet release of pornographic images depicting the abuse. He was arrested by Thai police in October 2007.
Task Force Argos is a branch of the Queensland Police Service, responsible for the investigation of online child exploitation and abuse. Founded in 1997, the unit's original charter was to investigate institutional child abuse allegations arising from the Forde Inquiry.
Laws against child sexual abuse vary by country based on the local definition of who a child is and what constitutes child sexual abuse. Most countries in the world employ some form of age of consent, with sexual contact with an underage person being criminally penalized. As the age of consent to sexual behaviour varies from country to country, so too do definitions of child sexual abuse. An adult's sexual intercourse with a minor below the legal age of consent may sometimes be referred to as statutory rape, based on the principle that any apparent consent by a minor could not be considered legal consent.
Child sexual abuse (CSA), also called child molestation, is a form of child abuse in which an adult or older adolescent uses a child for sexual stimulation. Forms of child sexual abuse include engaging in sexual activities with a child, indecent exposure, child grooming, and child sexual exploitation, such as using a child to produce child pornography.
Child pornography is erotic material that depicts persons under the age of 18. The precise characteristics of what constitutes child pornography varies by criminal jurisdiction.
Child sexual abuse in the United Kingdom has been reported in the country throughout its history. In about 90% of cases the abuser is a person known to the child. However, cases during the second half of the twentieth century, involving religious institutions, schools, popular entertainers, politicians, military personnel, and other officials, have been revealed and widely publicised since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Child sexual abuse rings in numerous towns and cities across the UK have also drawn considerable attention.
Online predators are individuals who commit child sexual abuse that begins or takes place on the Internet.
An Open Secret is a 2014 American documentary film directed by Amy J. Berg exposing child sexual abuse in the film industry in California.
There have been many reported cases and accusations of sexual abuse in the American film industry reported against people related to the medium of cinema of the United States.
The age of consent is the age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts and is thus the minimum age of a person with whom another person is legally permitted to engage in sexual activity. The distinguishing aspect of the age of consent laws is that the person below the minimum age is regarded as the victim, and their sex partner is regarded as the offender, unless both are underage.
Cybersex trafficking, live streaming sexual abuse, webcam sex tourism/abuse or ICTs -facilitated sexual exploitation is a cybercrime involving sex trafficking and the live streaming of coerced sexual acts and/or rape on webcam.