According to court documents, Greg Alan Pennington, 30, was arrested on June 27, following the indictment of 35-year-old Edward Aaron Harvey of Canton, Mich. Harvey was arrested after eBay investigators identified him as the owner of an account used to sell login names and passwords to explicit websites.

The investigation began with a German reporter using PayPal--a popular online payment service--to access child pornography websites.

In August 2004, a PayPal fraud investigator contacted Harvey and recorded a conversation in which he admitted to owning the account associated with the pornography sites.

Pennington and four other local men--two from San Jose, one from Walnut Creek and one from Monterey--were arrested and later released after posting bail. Arrests were also made in Germany, Norway and Spain.