WEST PALM BEACH−U.S. District Judge Rodney Smith sentenced Gary Roger Kolligian, 65, of South Palm Beach, Florida, to 97 months in prison for possessing child pornography, some of which depicted children under age 12. The judge also sentenced Kolligian to 15 years of supervised release following his prison term.
Ariana Fajardo Orshan, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Anthony Salisbury, Special Agent in Charge, Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), Miami Field Office, made the announcement.
Kolligian pled guilty to possessing child pornography on Nov. 19, 2019.
According to court records, Kolligian posted sexual abuse images of minors on Twitter. Twitter reported the activity to the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. Once law enforcement learned about the activity, they located and spoke with Kolligian. Kolligian admitted to officers that he possessed child pornography, that he chatted with people on-line about child pornography, and that he downloaded child pornography from an on-line chat group. Kolligian saved his collection of child pornography on different devices including a laptop computer, hard drives, and CD/DVDs. In total, he possessed over 300 images and videos of child pornography. Some of the saved material went back 20 years. The child pornography that Kolligian collected on these devices included pictures and videos of children who appeared to be as young as seven or eight-years-old posing sexually or engaging in sexually explicit acts.
U.S. Attorney Ariana Fajardo Orshan commended the investigation efforts of HSI, the South Palm Beach Police Department, and the Lantana Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Gregory Schiller prosecuted this case.
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.
Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
