Shoreline Man Gets 55 Years For Role In Child Porn Ring

SHORELINE, WA — A Shoreline man who authorities say helped run an international child porn ring was sentenced in Detroit this week. Michael Berenson, 30, was part of a group of men who coerced underage girls into performing on web cams, according to the U.S. Attorney in Eastern Michigan.

According to the U.S. Attorney, Berenson and other men went on social media sites and pretended to be teenage boys. They convinced underage girls, some as young as 9, into performing sex acts on camera. The men recorded and distributed those images.

The ring was active between 2012 and 2014, but the U.S. Attorney's office said Berenson continued producing child porn up until his arrest in Shoreline on May 20, 2017.

Berenson is the 25th man sentenced in connection to the ring, which produced over 105,000 videos or images exploiting children. Berenson was responsible for almost 10,000 hours of that, authorities said.

Berenson will serve 55 years in federal prison and pay $80,000 in restitution — $5,000 for each of the 20 victims identified so far.

The FBI’s Detroit Field Office and the Southeast Michigan Trafficking and Exploitation Crimes task force investigated the case.