S. Lane Tucker, U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney's Office District of Alaska
A Juneau resident, William Steadman, 35, has entered a guilty plea on charges of producing child pornography, as reported by the U.S. Justice Department. The announcement came from Matthew R. Galeotti, Head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney Michael J. Heyman for the District of Alaska, and Glen Peterson, U.S. Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Secret Service’s Seattle Field Office.
Court documents revealed that Steadman, a registered sex offender, engaged a young boy from his community in sexually explicit conduct, recorded the actions, and then posted the material on the dark web. The law enforcement first noticed Steadman when he distributed child sexual abuse material online. Although he tried to mask his identity on the dark web, law enforcement tips, a cryptocurrency transaction for additional CSAM, and online communications eventually led to his capture. During a search of his residence, over 4,000 images and videos of CSAM were found on his devices.
Steadman's guilty plea concerns one count of production of child pornography. "He is scheduled to be sentenced on a later date and faces a mandatory-minimum penalty of 25 years in prison and a maximum penalty of 50 years in prison," according to the announcement. A federal district court judge will decide his sentence considering U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other factors.
The investigation was conducted by the Secret Service’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. Prosecution is being handled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Mac Caille Petursson, Jack Schmidt, and William Reed for the District of Alaska, along with Trial Attorney McKenzie Hightower of the Justice Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS).
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, introduced by the Department of Justice in May 2006. This initiative pools federal, state, and local resources to address child sexual exploitation and abuse conducted over the internet, working to find, apprehend, and prosecute offenders and identify and rescue victims. Further details regarding this initiative can be found at www.justice.gov/psc.
