Defendant’s Involvement in Church Youth Group Provided Access to Victim
ATLANTA - Stanley Keith Johnson has been sentenced for producing, receiving and possessing child pornography.
“As a school bus driver and church youth group volunteer, this defendant had access to some of the most innocent and vulnerable members of society," United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said. “He downloaded child pornography and took explicit photographs of a fatherless young boy he was trusted to mentor. Children are not sexual objects, and persons who see them that way can expect to be caught and go to prison."
“The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is pleased with today’s sentencing. As long as child predators use the U.S. mail to exploit children, Postal Inspectors will continue to target those responsible. The use of the U.S. mail to victimize children will not be tolerated, plain and simple," said Keith Morris, Postal Inspector in Charge of the Atlanta Division.
“Individuals such as Mr. Johnson, who gain the confidence of children through a position of trust in order to victimize children, will be thoroughly investigated and held accountable," said Vernon Keenan, Director of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.
According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges and other information presented in court: From November 2010 to April 2011, the defendant placed orders with a foreign company for approximately 180 DVDs containing videos of nude boys between the ages of 8 and 14. He received those videos through the United States mail. A federal search warrant executed at his house in Mableton, Ga., in December 2012, revealed that he not only had received the videos but that he possessed child pornography on his home computer. A forensics examination of the computer showed that he had produced images of child pornography going back to May 2004. The victim was an 8-year-old child whom the defendant had befriended at his church, where he volunteered to work with the youth group and especially with young boys with no fathers in their lives.
After the search warrant was executed, Cobb County Public Schools fired the defendant from his position as a bus driver and bus driver supervisor. The defendant had been given a work computer to use for his supervisory duties. After he was fired, Cobb County Public Schools looked at the computer and saw that the defendant had downloaded images of child pornography on it. He also used his work computer to check on the delivery status of the child pornography videos that he had ordered.
Johnson, 57, of Mableton, Ga., was sentenced to 15 years in prison to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. Johnson was convicted of these charges on April 26, 2013, after he pleaded guilty.
This case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service with assistance from the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the Cobb County Police Department.
Assistant United States Attorney Paul R. Jones prosecuted the case.
This case is being brought as part of Project Safe Childhood. In February 2006, the Attorney General launched Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorney’s Offices around the country, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
For further information please contact the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Office at USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov or (404) 581-6016. The Internet address for the HomePage for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is www.justice.gov/usao/gan.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
