Federal judge sentences Texas man to 50 years for child porn

A 23-year-old will spend most of the rest of his life behind bars for convictions on child sexual abuse charges. The undercover investigation into the alleged child pornographer’s case began last year in Dallas and transferred to the FBI in Houston, after it was found the suspect resided there.

Federal agents discovered the pornographer molested young male victims who were in the babysitting care of his mother. Court records say the suspect lured six boys to his apartment with promises of video games or cash and recorded acts of molestation, which he shared online.

Investigators say the convicted man took photographs and videos of the sexual assaults. Some of the images on file in his computer were produced for and distributed through Internet software. Members of the FBI’s Innocent Images Task Force uncovered more than 200 separate pictures or videos of the neighborhood boys, whom agents later identified.

In addition, investigators found a massive cache of child pornography on the suspect’s computer. The computer contained a collection of more than 6,000 videos and 300,000 photographs of children under the age of 12, including images of masochistic and sadistic sexual behavior.

Task force investigators say the Houston man admitted to owning as much as 10 gigabytes of child pornography.

The suspect pleaded guilty in May to the child pornography charges and was kept in federal custody without bond until his recent sentencing. A federal judge ordered the man jailed for 50 years, sentencing the suspect to 360 months for production of child pornography and a consecutive term of 240 months for distribution.

The suspect will be 73 years old at the expected time of his release from prison, after which he will be on lifetime supervision and registered as a sex offender.

Source: yourhoustonnews.com, “Man gets 50-year prison sentence for molesting boys his mother was babysitting,” Oct. 20, 2011