HARRISBURG - The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that a Middletown man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg to 84 months’ imprisonment by United States District Judge John E. Jones, III for receipt of child pornography.
According to United States Attorney Peter Smith, the defendant, Steven Alan Shepherd, age 30, previously pleaded guilty to the receipt of child pornography in January 2015. Judge Jones also ordered Shepherd to pay restitution in the amount of $135,000.
The charges resulted from a search of Shepherd’s home on May 1, 2014, where over 21,000 images and 909 video files of child pornography were located and seized. Shepherd received the material via a computer in 2010.
This case 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."
This case was investigated by the United States Postal Inspection Service, Homeland Security Investigations and the Pennsylvania State Police and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Daryl F. Bloom.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
