LEXINGTON, KY - A federal jury has found a Lexington man guilty of receiving and possessing thousands of child pornography images.
On Wednesday night, following three days of trial and four hours of deliberation, the jury convicted Erik A. Hentzen, 26, of the charges.
The evidence at trial established that, from May 2012 to March 2013, Hentzen downloaded thousands of videos, which depicted prepubescent children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
On March 23, 2013, investigators with the Kentucky Attorney General’s Office executed a search warrant and seized multiple computers belonging to Hentzen; the computers contained more than 4,000 videos depicting child pornography.
The investigation began when authorities discovered that numerous child pornography videos had been made available for download over the internet. Investigators then traced the location of the computer to Hentzen’s apartment in downtown Lexington.
Kerry B. Harvey, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Jack Conway, Kentucky Attorney General; and Gary J. Hartwig, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), jointly announced the conviction.
The investigation was conducted by the Office of the Attorney General’s Cyber Crimes Unit and HSI. The Fort Mitchell Branch of the U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case on behalf of the federal government.
Hentzen is scheduled to be sentenced on Sept. 15, 2014. Each of the charges he was convicted of carries a maximum term of 20 years in prison. However, the Court must consider the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and the federal statutes before imposing the sentence.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
