Michele Beckwith Acting U.S. Attorney | U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California
A federal jury has convicted Edward Cragg, 46, of Turlock, Stanislaus County, for receipt of child pornography. The verdict was announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Matthew R. Galeotti of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of California Eric Grant; Special Agent in Charge Siddhartha Patel of the FBI’s Sacramento Field Office; and Chief Jason Hedden of the Turlock Police Department.
“Today, a jury found Cragg guilty of crimes that encouraged the gross abuse of our society’s most vulnerable members,” said U.S. Attorney Grant. “The U.S. Department of Justice will continue to target for prosecution and imprisonment those who contribute to this vile conduct.”
“The defendant was convicted by a jury for collecting videos depicting the sexual exploitation of children, including toddlers and infants who were subject to horrific abuse,” said Acting Assistant Attorney General Galeotti. “This content is vile and illegal, and we will aggressively prosecute those who engage with it.”
Court documents and evidence presented at trial showed that Cragg used a file-sharing program in 2015 and 2016 to search for and download over 130 videos containing images of child sexual abuse involving minors as young as infants and toddlers.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Turlock Police Department, with support from the Justice Department’s High Technology Investigative Unit within its Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS). Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gappa from the Eastern District of California and Trial Attorney McKenzie Hightower from CEOS are prosecuting.
Cragg is scheduled for sentencing on December 8, 2025, before U.S. District Judge Jennifer L. Thurston. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison with a maximum possible sentence of up to twenty years; sentencing will be determined based on statutory factors and federal guidelines.
This prosecution falls under Project Safe Childhood, an initiative started by the Department of Justice in May 2006 that brings together federal, state, and local resources to combat online child exploitation crimes nationwide. More information about Project Safe Childhood can be found at www.justice.gov/psc.
