FL - Former Cape lawyer (John Powell) ring leader in global child porn case

John Powell

Original Article

10/13/2013

By Hollie Hojek

CAPE CORAL - A local lawyer is accused of running a global child porn ring.

Federal court documents were released detailing a disturbing operation.

John Powell - or "Rex" as people call him - had a dark side no one knew about.

Powell's alleged secret life of sex with young children was kept hidden until now.

Court documents detailed the supposed global sex operation - revealing Powell would travel to foreign countries just to have sex with children.

Indiana investigators are calling the former Cape Coral attorney a ring leader in the global child sex operation dating back to 2009.

Documents state Powell, along with two other men, traveled across the United States and other countries to perform sexual acts with two young boys.

"As a lawyer, I'm sure other attorneys [and] every other person in this community, you have to be shocked and sickened by this," said Cape Coral attorney Stuart Pepper.

Pepper first heard about the child pornography charges against Powell in 2011. Powell was officially charged in 2012.

"For about a year and a half, this case was completely under the radar for the entire country. It's amazing how the feds were able to do this," said Pepper.

Pepper says what is even more surprising is that not even the attorneys who knew Powell best had any idea what was going on.

"How a man like Rex can work among us, with lawyers day after day, and still sneak away and do his sick stuff around the world without being detected is a remarkable achievement – in a bad way," said Pepper.

The other two men involved reportedly bought a child from Russia for $8,000 to use in the child porn ring.

The report states Powell and the two other men used a high definition camera to video record the sexual acts.

"This man was literally a criminal mastermind," said Pepper.

In June this year, one of the men involved plead guilty and faces 40 years in prison.

Powell is charged with at least four counts of sexual exploitation. If convicted he could suffer the same fate or worse.

"If Rex goes to trial, they are going to try him on all the counts and he could get charged on each count consecutively. He could easily serve over 100 years," said Pepper.

Powell is expected to appear in an Indiana district court at the end of the month.