Man, 55, ran porn community on Reddit

Suspect faces multiple charges, including making child pornography

A Toronto man facing charges, including child luring and making child pornography, ran a Reddit community where he shared scripted audio pornography, some of which appeared to include content about minors and school students.

According to a Thursday news release from Toronto police, Richard Burdett, 55, was using the usernames “fstopvox” and “F_Stop_Fitzgerald” on various social media platforms.

Those names appear to refer to accounts on Reddit, Twitter and Snapchat.

The Toronto Police Service Child Exploitation Team executed a search warrant on April 20, after which Burdett was charged with child luring, making child pornography, possessing child pornography, accessing child pornography and making available child pornography, according to the release.

A Reddit community with more than 5,000 members started in 2017 by the user f_stop_Fitzgerald was taken down Thursday evening soon after Toronto police announced Burdett’s arrest.

The group’s description called it a “repository for all my recordings.”

The community contained several posts described as containing recordings of explicit scripted content. One posted four years ago was described as being of a “young girl” being interviewed by a police officer about sexual abuse. Another posted in 2018 was titled: “Slutty schoolgirl detention.”

It is unclear if this content is linked in any way to the charges Burdett is facing.

“Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) has no place on the Reddit platform,” a spokesperson for Reddit said in an email. “We deploy both automated tools and human intelligence to proactively detect and prevent the dissemination of CSAM material. When we find such material, we purge it and permanently ban the user from accessing Reddit. We also take the steps required under law to report the relevant user(s) and preserve any necessary user data."

The website has a policy that does not permit any sexual or suggestive content about minors or someone who appears to be a minor, including “fantasy content.”

A link to the Reddit page has been replaced with a disclaimer that the community has been banned.

Burdett has a next court appearance in May.