ABILENE, Texas - Paul Joseph Koestle, 33, of Abilene, Texas, was sentenced this morning by Chief U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis to serve a total of 50 years in federal prison, following his guilty plea in August 2015 to two felony child pornography offenses, announced U.S. Attorney John Parker of the Northern District of Texas.
Specifically, Koestle, who has been in custody, pleaded guilty to one count of production of child pornography and one count of receipt of child pornography. Judge Solis sentenced him to the statutory maximum sentence of 360 months on the production count and 240 months on the receipt count, to run consecutively.
According to documents filed in the case, earlier this year the Abilene Police Department (APD) began investigating Koestle based on information they received from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) indicating he had uploaded an image of child pornography to a Google account. The APD executed a search warrant at his home in late April 2015.
Koestle, who was home during the execution of the warrant, admitted to downloading child pornography and producing child pornography of a minor child, “Jane Doe." A forensic evaluation of electronic equipment seized from his residence pursuant to the search revealed hundreds of images of child pornography located on a cellphone, a laptop computer and hard drive. In addition, multiple images of “Jane Doe" engaging in sexually explicit conduct were found.
The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, which was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s 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 sexually exploit children, and identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “resources."
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Abilene Police Department investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Myria Boehm was in charge of the prosecution.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
