Des Moines, IA - A West Des Moines man was sentenced yesterday to eight years in federal prison for transportation of child pornography.
According to court documents, James Dean Gathercole, age 55 of West Des Moines, knowingly uploaded an image of child pornography to a 72-member Internet group chat room in May 2020. Gathercole also knowingly possessed at least five videos and two images of child pornography on his cellular phone in September 2020.
As recently as 2020, Gathercole was employed as a firefighter at departments in the Des Moines metro area.
In addition to his term of imprisonment, Gathercole was ordered to serve a term of supervised release of seven years and pay a total of $40,000 in fines and a $100 special assessment.
U.S. Attorney Richard D. Westphal of the Southern District of Iowa made the announcement. Homeland Security Investigations investigated the case.
This case was prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa as part of the U.S. Department of Justice’s “Project Safe Childhood" initiative, which was started in 2006 as a nationwide effort to combine law enforcement investigations and prosecutions, community action, and public awareness in order to reduce the incidence of sexual exploitation of children. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc and click on the resources tab.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the United States Attorneys
