HOUSTON - Glenn Casey Portwood, 53, has been ordered to federal prison following his conviction of possession of child pornography which included images of babies and toddlers, announced U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson. Portwood pleaded guilty Nov. 18, 2014.
Today, U.S. District Judge Gray Miller took into consideration the large number of images and handed Portwood the statutory maximum of 120 months in federal prison. At the hearing, information was presented including a victim letter/statement from two victims of child pornography series. In handing down the sentence, Judge Miller considered the large collection and the nature of the images and videos possessed by Portwood. He was further ordered to pay restitution of $5,000 to a known victim and will serve 15 years of supervised release following completion of his prison term. He will also be ordered to register as a sex offender.
The investigation began in September 2012 when a particular computer was identified as sharing child pornography via peer-to-peer software on the Internet. Law enforcement linked that computer Internet account to Portwood’s name and found that he resided in Sugar Land.
A search warrant was conducted at the location and included a Honda Portwood admitted he drove. Inside the trunk of the vehicle, officers discovered found a black backpack with nine individually labeled CDs, two external hard drives, one Compaq Presario laptop computer and one Gateway laptop computer.
One of the CDs was labeled “VCKY 2004," on which officers found a folder named “Vicky" with 32 movie files containing child pornography. “Vicky" is the name of a known and identified child pornography series of images and videos that is widely traded over the Internet.
A forensic exam revealed approximately 70 videos and 325 images containing child pornography on the two computers and one of the external hard drives also contained approximately 50,000 images and 1,300 child pornography videos. Four of the CDs also contained child pornography. Some of the images and videos involved prepubescent girls, even toddlers and babies. The child pornography included children as young as 1-3 years old to young teens engaging in oral, vaginal and anal sex. There were also images depicting bondage.
Portwood will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future.
The charges against Portwood were the result of an investigation conducted by the Sugar Land Police Department, as part of the Houston Metro Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the FBI.
This case, prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Stabe, 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 the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to 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.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
