Albuquerque Man Sentenced to Five Years in Prison and a Lifetime of Supervised Release on Child Pornography Conviction

ALBUQUERQUE—William Winzenburg, Jr., 28, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, was sentenced this afternoon to five years in federal prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for his child pornography conviction.

Winzenburg was arrested on February 7, 2013, on a criminal complaint and has been in federal custody since his arrest. Winzenburg subsequently was indicted in March 2013 and charged with two counts of receiving visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct and two counts of possession of a visual depiction of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Court records reveal that the investigation into Winzenburg was initiated in November 2013 after the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office (BCSO) received information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that a specific IP address was being used to receive child pornography. On February 7, 2013, after determining that the IP address was subscribed to Winzenburg, the FBI and BCSO executed a search warrant at Wenzenburg’s residence and seized computers and computer-related media which contained child pornography.

On October 1, 2013, Winzenburg entered a guilty plea to count one of the indictment, charging him with receipt of child pornography. In his plea agreement, Winzenburg admitted that he voluntarily participated in a recorded interview with the FBI and BCSO on February 7, 2013, during which he admitted downloading child pornography images and videos from the Internet.

The case was investigated by the FBI, BCSO, and the New Mexico Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory and was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Marisa A. Lizarraga. It was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and DOJ’s Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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 http://www.justice.gov/psc/.

The Operation also was brought as a part of the New Mexico Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force’s mission, which is to locate, track, and capture Internet child sexual predators and Internet child pornographers in New Mexico. There are 64 federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies associated with the ICAC Task Force, which is funded by a grant administered by the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office. Anyone with information relating to suspected child predators and suspected child abuse is encouraged to contact federal or local law enforcement.