Tampa, Florida - U.S. District Judge Charlene Honeywell today sentenced Paul Dale Pollitt, III (40) to 20 years in federal prison for production of child pornography. The Court also ordered him to forfeit the cellphone he had used to commit the offense. Pollitt pleaded guilty on Nov. 15, 2016.
According to court documents, an undercover police detective working as part of a multi-jurisdictional Child Exploitation Task Force posted an online advertisement on a site frequented by individuals that have a sexual interest in children. In November 2015, Pollitt reached out to this undercover officer, believing him to be a man similarly interested in this type of activity.
Pollitt chatted with the undercover officer for several days and traded multiple images of a child, including an image of child pornography. Pollitt told the undercover officer that he would be seeing the child the following weekend, and intended to take additional photographs of her. Law enforcement officers then engaged in an effort to identify and locate Pollitt before he would again have access to the victim.
Ultimately, Pollitt was arrested and his electronic devices were seized. A review of those devices revealed that Pollitt had been chatting with anonymous men online about molesting the victim for over a year. Several additional photographs were found of the victim, including several additional images of child pornography.
This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Rachel K. Jones and Stacie B. Harris.
It is another case 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.justice.gov/psc.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
