Baltimore Woman Pleads Guilty to Sexually Abusing a Minor to Produce Child Pornography

BALTIMORE—Tiffany Bolner, age 21, of Baltimore, pleaded guilty today to conspiring to produce and producing child pornography.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Baltimore Police Commissioner Frederick H. Bealefeld III; and Baltimore City State’s Attorney Gregg Bernstein.

According to Bolner’s statement of facts, sometime in 2009, Bolner became friends with a child who lived in her neighborhood. Around 2009, Bolner became romantically involved with a co-defendant. Bolner began taking the child with her to visit the co-defendant and spend the night at the co-defendant’s home. By February 2010, Bolner and the co-defendant lived together and the child spent weekends at their home. Between February 2010 and May 2010, Bolner and the co-defendant sexually abused the child. The sexual abuse started with the co-defendant and Bolner engaging in sexual intercourse while the child was in the room, and progressed to Bolner and her co-defendant performing sex acts on the child and having the child perform sex acts on both of them. On at least one occasion, when the child resisted, Bolner performed a sex act on the child while her co-defendant held the child down. The co-defendant told the child that he would harm Bolner if the child told anyone about the abuse. Bolner and her co-defendant used a “smart phone” to take videos and photographs of their abuse of the child. These videos and photographs documenting the sexual abuse of the child were recovered during a forensic examination of the video cards recovered during searches executed as part of the investigation.

Bolner faces a minimum of 15 years and a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison for producing child pornography and for the conspiracy. U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis has scheduled sentencing for May 12, 2011 at 10:00 a.m.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States 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.projectsafechildhood.gov. Details about Maryland’s program are available at www.justice.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the FBI, the Baltimore Police Department, and the Baltimore City State’s Attorney’s Office for their work in the investigation and assistance in the prosecution. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Budlow, who is prosecuting the case.