Defendant Prosecuted Under Project Safe Childhood
ALBUQUERQUE - Kyla Lashawn Norby, 28, of Hobbs, N.M., was sentenced late yesterday afternoon in federal court in Las Cruces, N.M., to 15 years in prison followed by 15 years of supervised release for her conviction on a production of child pornography charge. Norby will be required to register as a sex offender when she completes her prison sentence. Norby also was ordered to pay $210,012.00 in restitution to the victim of her criminal conduct.
Norby’s sentence was announced by Acting U.S. Attorney James D. Tierney, Special Agent in Charge Waldemar Rodriguez of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in El Paso, and Lea County Undersheriff Tom Dunford.
Norby was arrested on Jan. 8, 2016, on a criminal complaint alleging that she produced and distributed child pornography between May 2015 and Dec. 2015, in Lea County, N.M. According to the criminal complaint, the investigation into Norby was initiated after Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) agents from Laredo, Tex., arrested a man in Odessa, Tex., who revealed that Norby made a two-year old child sexually available to him. A search of the man’s smartphone revealed photos of Norby, including images consistent with child pornography, that Norby sent to the man from her smartphone.
On June 22, 2016, Norby pled guilty to a felony information charging her with production of child pornography. In her plea agreement, Norby admitted that on Oct. 25, 2015, she used a smartphone to take a sexually explicit photograph of a toddler with the intention of sharing the photograph with an individual in Texas.
This case was investigated by the Las Cruces office of HSI and the Lea Country Sheriff’s Office, both members of the New Mexico Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, with assistance from HSI in Laredo, Texas. The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa A. Ong of the U.S. Attorney’s Las Cruces Branch Office.
This case is being prosecuted as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and DOJ’s 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 http://www.justice.gov/psc/.
The case was brought as a part of the New Mexico ICAC Task Force’s mission, which is to locate, track, and capture Internet child sexual predators and Internet child pornographers in New Mexico. There are 82 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies associated with the New Mexico ICAC Task Force, which is funded by a grant administered by the Office of the New Mexico Attorney General. Anyone with information relating to suspected child predators and suspected child abuse is encouraged to contact federal or local law enforcement.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
