James Earl Tuttle, 45, of Lyles, Tennessee was sentenced today by U.S. District Court Judge William L. Campbell, Jr., to 30 years in prison for production of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Don Cochran for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Tuttle was indicted by a federal grand jury on July 6, 2016, and charged with two counts of production of child pornography. He pleaded guilty to one count of the indictment on March 16, 2017.
According to court records, in April 2016, a 15 year-old girl disclosed to her mother that Tuttle had been raping her since she was 13 years old. The family reported the repeated rapes to the Fairview Police Department, and an investigation ensued. Investigators found that on at least two occasions in November 2015, Tuttle also had recorded sexually explicit images of the girl. The investigation revealed that not only had Tuttle raped the child for several years, but he also tried to convince her to have sex with other men for money.
During the execution of a search warrant in April 2016, Tuttle confessed to taking nude pictures of the child and admitted sharing the pictures with others on-line. Tuttle later admitted to raping the girl on multiple occasions, stating that he, “knew it was wrong," but blamed the child for seducing him when she was 13 years old.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice, 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 www.justice.gov/psc.
This matter was investigated by the Fairview Police Department, the Hickman County Sheriff’s Office, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorney S. Carran Daughtrey prosecuted the case on behalf of the United States
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
