Richard A. Souders, 41, of Hartsville, Tennessee, was sentenced today by visiting United States District Court Judge Marvin Aspen, to 60 years in prison for production of child pornography, transportation of child pornography, and receipt of child pornography, announced Jack Smith, Acting United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.
Souders was charged in a 12-count indictment in October 2014, after an undercover investigation revealed that Souders was trading child pornography with like-minded individuals. Investigators discovered that during a week in mid-June 2014, Souders had been taking care of a 17-month old girl and took sexually explicit images of her on four occasions. He communicated online with others, who also had a sexual interest in children, talking about his molestation of this baby in his care and sending sexually exploitive images of her. Additionally, he had a collection of over 100 images and videos of other children being sexually abused.
“The sentence imposed by the Court reflects the horrendous actions of the defendant and society’s need to punish the offender and insure that no other innocent children will become a victim of his perverted sexual desires," said Acting U.S. Attorney Jack Smith.
Souders pleaded guilty to these charges in December 2015, admitting that he had recorded the sexually explicit images of a toddler, transported those images to others online, and collected images and videos depicting the sexual exploitation of young children.
This matter was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Dickson County Sheriff’s Office. The United States was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney S. Carran Daughtrey.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
