Dundalk Man Admits to Repeatedly Sexually Abusing a Child to Produce Pornography

BALTIMORE, MD—Larry James Kerfoot, age 38, of Dundalk, Maryland, pleaded guilty yesterday to sexually exploiting a minor on at least five occasions to produce images of child pornography.

The plea agreement was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Stephen E. Vogt of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Special Agent in Charge William Winter of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI); Chief James W. Johnson of the Baltimore County Police Department; and Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger.

According to his plea agreement, on May 30, 2012, an undercover Baltimore County detective downloaded a video depicting child pornography from an Internet file made available by Kerfoot from his Dundalk home. Law enforcement officers executed a search warrant on June 27, 2012 at his home and seized computers and digital media containing 19 videos and 80 images of child pornography that Kerfoot had received from the Internet.

Officers also seized a video he had produced of a 12-year old girl whom he had coerced to engage in sexually explicit conduct with him on at least five occasions.

As part of his plea agreement, Kerfoot must 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).

Kerfoot and the government have agreed that if the court accepts the plea agreement, Kerfoot will be sentenced to between 25 and 30 years in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release. U.S. District Judge Ellen L. Hollander has scheduled sentencing for November 7, 2013 at 2 p.m.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the "resources" tab on the left of the page.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the FBI, HSI Baltimore, Baltimore County Police Department, and Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Judson T. Mihok, who prosecuted the case.