ALEXANDRIA, La. - Acting U.S. Attorney Alexander C. Van Hook announced that a Broussard man was sentenced Monday to 150 months in prison for receiving child pornography using his computer.
Frederic Woodruff French, 70, of Broussard, La., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Dee D. Drell on one count of receiving child pornography. He was also sentenced to five years of supervised release and must register as a sex offender. According to the June 28, 2017 guilty plea, French dropped off his laptop on Aug. 14, 2014 to a computer repair technician to transfer data to a new computer. While transferring the data, the technician noticed images of child pornography on the computer. The technician called law enforcement agents who examined the laptop and found the images. They also found online chat logs where French discussed paying a woman in the Philippines to produce images of child pornography using her young prepubescent children. Based upon the on-line chats between French and the woman, French agreed to send money to the woman in return for her taking sexually explicit images of her children and sending them to French. He also discussed traveling to the Philippines to engage in sexual acts with the young children.
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a U.S. Department of Justice nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood combines 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 www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration & Customs Enforcement (ICE) also encourage the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at (866) 347-2423. Investigators are available at all hours to answer hotline calls. Tips or other information can also be submitted to ICE online by visiting their website at www.ice.gov/exec/forms/hsi-tips/tips.asp or through the Operation Predator smartphone application www.ice.gov/predator/smartphone-app. Tips may be submitted anonymously.
Homeland Security Investigations and the Lafayette Police Department conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney John Luke Walker prosecuted the case.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
