A political fundraiser who solicited tens of millions of dollars in recent years by invoking social-conservative platitudes has been charged by federal prosecutors with possessing pornography depicting children who may have been as young as toddlers, and investigators say he filmed victims in his own house.
Michael Centanni, former chief operating officer of Base Connect, appeared Wednesday in a red jumpsuit before Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, and remains behind bars.
Department of Homeland Security investigators “located approximately 7,000 videos that recorded the master bedroom of the residence. Two videos, each approximately 30 seconds long, depict the defendant in bed with a girl approximately 5 years old.
“The defendant then pulls the covers on the bed downward to expose the child’s lower torso and appears to stare toward the child’s lower torso area before touching the child in the lower torso area and reaching towards his mouth,” according to a statement of facts filed by prosecutors.
Also allegedly found were “four videos taken with a hidden camera in what appears to be the bathroom adjacent to the children’s bedrooms. The hidden camera videos depict an approximately 12-year-old female child removing her clothes and entering the shower,” the document states.
“The defendant is the father of an approximately 15-year-old son, an approximately 14-year-old daughter, an approximately 10-year-old son, and an approximately 5-year-old daughter,” the document said.
The document said investigators traced the transmission of known child pornography to an IP address registered to Centanni’s wife and a computer in the basement of the couple’s D.C. residence.
They allegedly found files including one that showed a man penetrating a girl “who appears to be under the age of five.” The girl cries “no” and “mommy” while the man says “good baby” and “stop crying,” according to the document.
Centanni’s wife is an investigator for Republicans on the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee.
Centanni was on the board of the conservative youth group Young Americans for Freedom, and his specialty license plate reads “Children First.”
Many of Centenni’s Facebook postings before his Oct. 30 arrest concerned pedophilia and incest, always from a religious conservative viewpoint.
Linking to a Huffington Post article discussing incest two weeks before his arrest, Centanni wrote that “the last time relations between close relatives was condoned was after the flood as far as I know.”
A week earlier, he linked to a column in the New York Times headlined “Pedophilia: A Disorder, Not a Crime.”
“So here we see the seeds of normalization,” he wrote. “Forty years ago, this article was written and the term pedophile and related terms [were] instead homosexual.”
In a posting about sex education, he wrote “they have an agenda to remove all morality … why do we insist on making it nothing more than a base biological function whose mercy we are helpless to resist.”
In one post titled “Dear Kids: Why Wait till Marriage,” he condemned “horrible shows like Glee and role models like Miley Cyrus” as causing children to have sex too soon.
He also condemned provocative clothing, including “shorts that have messages on the backside.”
“I want my daughters to have the strength to say no to people who will want them to do things they know are wrong.”
He linked to an article in a conservative publication saying Planned Parenthood advised a “pimp” on underage sex trafficking.
Centanni’s Facebook page also describes him meeting with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and pictures him meeting with Sharron Angle, who lost a 2010 race against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada.
“Effective immediately, Michael Centanni’s employment as Chief Operating Officer of Base Connect has been terminated,” said Kimberly Bellissimo, Base Connect’s CEO. “Our thoughts and prayers go out to the blameless victims involved in this matter.”
Centanni was also a minority partner in the firm, and the statement said that “Base Connect has exercised the moral turpitude clause in its partnership agreement, which permits the company to sever all ties with Michael Centanni as a partner.”
Base Connect has raised millions of dollars in recent years with direct-mail solicitations aimed at elderly conservative donors. Little of the money raised goes to candidates; most of it goes to the firm and pays for their fundraising mailers.
For example, in 2006 the firm raised $731,000 in the name of Republican candidate Chuck Morse by telling donors their money would help topple then-Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. Morse only saw 4 percent of the money — and he wasn’t even on the ballot.
Political action committees tied to Base Connect spend almost nothing seeking to sway races, instead focusing on fundraising to finance more fundraising.
The candidates with whom Base Connect does business often have no chance of winning. Elderly donors, many of whom relatives say are too senile to make financial decisions, have said they feel swindled and abused.
As for the children, Centanni’s next day in court is next month.
