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L.A. man convicted of producing child pornography in the Philippines

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Their first meeting was on the phone: She was in the Philippines, he was in Los Angeles.

She told him she was 13. He asked her to call him “uncle,” prosecutors said.

And for about two years, Stanley Reczko and the girl, whose name has not been released, had phone sex before meeting in person in 2005, according to court documents.

There followed years of sexual abuse, a sham marriage and the production of a series of sexually graphic images involving the underage girl, some of which Reczko brought back into the U.S., prosecutors said.

Reczko, now 50, was convicted Tuesday on federal child pornography charges and faces at least 35 years in prison -- and possibly life behind bars without parole, according to the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles.

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At a downtown courtroom, U.S. District Judge George H. King found Reczko guilty of producing child pornography during the time he was required to register as a sex offender, according to the U.S. attorney’s office.

The judge made the decision because Reczko waived a jury trial. The ruling marked the end of the Koreatown resident’s two-part trial. On Feb. 20, a jury convicted Reczko of sexual exploitation of a minor by producing child pornography.

In 1996, Reczko was convicted of first-degree rape of his then-14-year-old daughter, a crime that required him to register as a sex offender in California.

According to court documents obtained by The Times, after about two years of phone sex, Reczko met the girl in November 2005 in the Philippines. He gave her clothes, then two weeks later, groped and massaged her in his hotel room, prosecutors said.

He later gave her a ring and asked her if he could take her virginity. Despite her resistance, he threatened to “find another girl” and she then submitted to sex, prosecutors said. She tearfully tried to push him off her, “but she was unable to break free,” prosecutors said.

The pair entered into a sham marriage in early 2006, and he lived in her family’s home for about two months. At that time he also started to take explicit photographs of her, prosecutors said.

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During the next year, Reczko took more sexually graphic photographs of her, including a series produced at a Manila hotel. Some photographs showed her alone, and others showed Reczko having sex with her. Prosecutors say he brought many of the images back to the U.S.

He began to physically abuse the girl in the spring of 2007. She reported the abuse to her parents and to the police, to no avail, prosecutors said. She turned to a social worker in May 2007, and a day later, she was taken to a safe house run by a nonprofit, which turned over a copy of the pornographic CD to the Philippines government for investigation.

Reczko is scheduled to be sentenced May 18.

For breaking news in California, follow @MattHjourno.

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