An Army soldier has been sentenced to five years in prison for child pornography charges and threatening to assault or murder a federal employee.
According to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement April 12 news release, an Arizona court sentenced Jahara William Byfield, 23, of Sunrise, Fla., to five years in prison. ICE's Homeland Security Investigations worked with Sierra Vista Police Department, Army Criminal INvestigation Division and the U.S. Marshals Service to investigate.
“Child pornography, when it’s released on the internet, lives on forever to haunt the innocent children whose abuse is depicted in the images. While we cannot undo the damage of his horrible crimes, we hope that this sentence helps with the healing process for victims and families,” said Scott Brown, special agent in charge for HSI Phoenix. “HSI is committed through the investigative work with all our law enforcement partners to ending this type of heinous exploitation.”
At the time of his arrest Aug. 28, 2020, Byfield was stationed at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., for training. The news release reported Byfield revealed having used his cellphones to obtain images and videos of children, including pre-pubescent minors, engaging in sexually explicit conduct. He reportedly pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography in December 2020.
The release state he was placed on pretrial release with conditions after his arrest. During this time, Byfield reportedly threatened to kill everyone involved with the computer monitoring program he was part of. These threats led to the revokation of his release. He pleaded guilty to threatening to assault or murder a federal employee December 2021.
Upon release from prison, Byfield will be subject to lifetime supervised release. He will also be required to register as a sex offender and complete a sex offender treatment program, according to the release.
