A gay couple in Georgia have been arrested on charges of allegedly sexually abusing their two adopted sons, who are brothers, and filming the abuse to upload and share on the internet.
William and Zachary Zulock were jailed on charges related to aggravated child molestation and sexual exploitation, according to the Walton County inmate list. The two men are also facing pending charges related to sexual exploitation and enticing a child for indecent purposes.
As NBC reported earlier this month, the investigation into the couple kicked off on July 27 after authorities were tipped off by a third suspect who was allegedly downloading child sex abuse material.
Investigators learned from the tipster about another person who “was producing homemade child sexual abuse material with at least one child who lived in the home with the perpetrator,” according to the Walton County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO).
Authorities raided the men’s home that night in Oxford after confirming the identities of the children and perpetrators, as well as obtaining a search warrant.
“A small team was dedicated to moving directly to the children to ensure their safety while a team engaged with the adults in the home, securing the scene,” officials said.
“During the execution of the search warrant, evidence that both adult males — the adoptive fathers of the sibling pair residing in the home — were engaging in sexually abusive acts and video documenting this abuse.”
The investigation is ongoing, according to officials.
According to a WSB-TV news report earlier this month, the two children allegedly abused by the men were brothers the Zuckers had adopted. The Walton County’s Division of Family and Child Services joined deputies in the raid at the home to secure the children’s safety.
Evidence suggesting that the men sexually abused the children and recorded the abuse was discovered by investigators during the raid and after ensuring the children were safe.
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Concerns about the sexual exploitation of minors were at the center of a separate case involving allegations that Visa knowingly monetized child pornography on Pornhub and MindGeek-owned sites.
The lawsuit, Fleites v. MindGeek, was filed last month in the U.S. District Court Central District of California. The plaintiff, Serene Fleites, alleged that Pornhub hosted a sexually explicit video of her that was filmed when she was 13.
Fleites claimed that her boyfriend at the time pressured her into making the video and posted it online without her consent. MindGeek posted the video on other pornography websites, and it garnered over 400,000 views before Fleites discovered it.
The complaint alleges that Pornhub’s parent company profited from revenue earned from advertisements that appeared in the video.
“While MindGeek profited from the child porn featuring Plaintiff, Plaintiff was intermittently homeless or living in her car, addicted to heroin, depressed and suicidal, and without the support of her family,” the lawsuit reads.
Visa was listed as a defendant and filed a motion to be dismissed from the lawsuit, but U.S. District Judge Cormac Carney denied the request. Fleites argued in her lawsuit that the credit card company knew MindGeek’s websites contained child pornography and had failed to purge such content.
Despite this knowledge, the lawsuit states that “Visa and its agent banks explicitly agreed with MindGeek to continue to process transactions without restrictions on all MindGeek sites provided MindGeek maintained pretextual window dressing claims that it had technology, processes, and policies in place to prevent such content.”
Visa believes it should be dismissed from the lawsuit because the complaint hinges on the actions of MindGeek and the plaintiff’s boyfriend. However, Carney ruled that the “emotional trauma that Plaintiff suffered flows directly from MindGeek’s monetization of her videos.”