Defendant Possessed Over 90,000 Sexually Explicit Images and Videos of Minors
Gulfport, Mississippi. - After a five-day trial, a federal jury on Friday found Taryn Goin Naidoo, 41, of Diamondhead, guilty of three counts of possession of images of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, announced Assistant Attorney General Brian A. Benczkowski of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Mike Hurst and Special Agent in Charge Jere T. Miles with U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) in New Orleans.
“I applaud our prosecutors and law enforcement partners for taking this criminal off our streets and making all of our kids a little safer today. This guilty verdict should serve as a warning to others who possess or peddle in this garbage - we are coming after you, we will find you, and you will go to prison. We will continue to do everything within our power to protect the least among us," said U.S. Attorney Hurst.
From July 2017 through October 2018, HSI conducted an investigation with the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office and the Diamondhead Police Department which resulted in the seizure and forensic examination of multiple electronic devices found at Naidoo’s residence, to include Micro SD cards, laptop computers, notepads or tablets, and hard drives. The evidence found on the electronic devices and the timeline of that evidence proved Naidoo knowingly possessed over 90,000 images and videos of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, to include images of minors who had not attained 12 years of age.
Naidoo will be sentenced by before Senior U.S. District Judge Louis Guirola, Jr. on April 8, 2020, at 10:00 a.m. He faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and $250,000 fine on each count.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrea Jones and Ralph Paradiso of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS).
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 Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), 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.projectsafechildhood.gov.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
