SHREVEPORT, La. - United States Attorney Stephanie A. Finley announced today that a dispatcher with the Shreveport Fire Department was sentenced to 25 months in prison for possessing child pornography.
Shreveport Fire Department Dispatcher Stephen St. John, 46, of Shreveport, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Elizabeth E. Foote on one count of possession of child pornography. He was also sentenced to five years of supervised release. According to evidence presented at the Sept. 18, 2014, guilty plea, law enforcement agents discovered that St. John was a member of a secret internet file posting board that distributed child pornography. His home was searched on September 5, 2013 and several computers, external hard drives, memory cards, DVDs and diskettes were seized. An examination of the seized items revealed pubescent and prepubescent males engaged in explicit sexual activity.
The U.S. Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations, U.S. Marshals Service and the Louisiana State Police investigated the case. Assistant U.S. Attorney Cytheria D. Jernigan prosecuted the case.
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a U.S. Department of Justice nationwide initiative 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 exploit children via the internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security/Homeland Security Investigations/Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) encourage the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at (866) DHS-2ICE. Investigators are available at all hours to answer hotline calls. Tips or other information can also be submitted to ICE online at www.ice.gov/exec/forms/hsi-tips/tips.asp. Tips may be reported anonymously
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
