Previously Convicted Ocean City Sex Offender Sentenced to 10 Years for Possessing Child Pornography
Salisbury Man Pleaded Guilty Yesterday in a Separate Case to Receiving Child Pornography

BALTIMORE—U.S. District Judge William M. Nickerson sentenced Lawrence Franklin King III, age 41, a previously convicted sex offender living in Ocean City, Maryland, today to 10 years in prison followed by supervised release for life for possession of child pornography. Judge Nickerson also ordered that upon his release from prison, King will be required to register as a sex offender in the place where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).

The sentence 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; Anne Arundel County Police Chief James Teare, Sr.; Colonel Terrence Sheridan, Superintendent of the Maryland State Police; Worcester County Sheriff Reggie T. Mason, Sr.; and Worcester County State’s Attorney Beau Oglesby.

According to King’s plea agreement, in 2002, King was convicted in Baltimore of sexual abuse of a child and sentenced to 10 years in prison, all suspended. Following receipt of a complaint regarding child pornography involving King, law enforcement searched King’s residence on October 1, 2010 and seized over 600 videos and images documenting the sexual abuse of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. The images included prepubescent children, as well as depictions of sadistic and masochistic activity.

In an unrelated case, Dustin Anthony Axelrod, age 27, of Salisbury, Maryland pleaded guilty yesterday to receipt of child pornography. According to his plea agreement, in January 2009, Axelrod was sharing files on the internet when an undercover Wicomico County detective downloaded several of the files. The files contained images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Agents seized a computer and two hard drives during a search executed at Axelrod’s home on February 4, 2009 and recovered over 600 images and movies of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, including children under the age of 12. Axelrod faces a minimum mandatory sentence of five years in prison and a maximum of 20 year in prison, followed by supervised release for up to life. U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles, Jr. has scheduled sentencing for September 20, 2011 at 1:00 p.m.

These cases were 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, ICE, Anne Arundel County Police Department, Maryland State Police, Wicomico County Sheriff’s Office, Wicomico County State’s Attorney’s Office, Worcester County Sheriff’s Office and Worcester County State’s Attorney’s Office for their work in these investigations and prosecutions. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Judson Mihok, who prosecuted the cases.