LUBBOCK, Texas - James Galen Brown, 40, of Lubbock, Texas, was sentenced this morning by U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings to nine years in federal prison and a 10-year term of supervised release, following his guilty plea in October 2012 to one count of transportation of child pornography. Brown admitted that he used his cell phone, and its texting functions, to intentionally send and receive images and videos of child pornography. Judge Cummings ordered that Brown surrender to the Bureau of Prisons on March 1, 2013. Today’s announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas.
According to documents filed in the case, on June 1, 2012, Special Agents with U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) interviewed Brown after receiving information that a telephone number assigned to Brown had received text messages with attachments of child pornography. Brown admitted that he used the cell phone to communicate with other individuals who shared an interest in sexually explicit images and videos of minors, and he used his cell phone to trade the material with those persons. He located these persons on Internet chat rooms and exchanged phone numbers with them, and then traded the child pornography images and videos by attaching them to text messages.
This matter was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc/ For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab "resources."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Sucsy was in charge of the prosecution.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
