Hershel Andrew Green, III, a 42-year-old resident of the District of Columbia, was arrested on August 24 at San Francisco International Airport. He has been charged in U.S. District Court with possessing and distributing child sexual abuse materials (CSAM), according to an announcement from U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro.
Green is scheduled to make his initial appearance in U.S. District Court in San Francisco today.
Authorities identified Green during an investigation after discovering electronic communications between him and another individual regarding the sexual abuse of children. The investigation revealed that Green both distributed and received images and videos depicting the sexual abuse of prepubescent children.
"This case is being brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the 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.justice.gov/psc," stated Pirro.
The FBI Washington Field Office collaborated with the Metropolitan Police Department’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in this investigation. The task force consists of FBI agents along with other federal agents and detectives from northern Virginia and Washington D.C., focusing on investigating crimes related to child exploitation and human trafficking.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Janani Iyengar is prosecuting the case.
