Charlotte Man Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison for Child Pornography-Related Charges
| U.S. Attorney’s Office July 26, 2012 |
CHARLOTTE, NC—A Charlotte man previously convicted by a jury for aiding and abetting the transportation of child pornography was sentenced on Wednesday, July 25, 2012, in U.S. District Court in Charlotte to serve 15 years in prison, to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release, announced Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina.
U.S. Attorney Tompkins is joined by in making today’s announcement by Chris Briese, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division.
In May 2011, a federal jury found Rashod Sentelle Robinson, 28, of Charlotte, guilty of aiding and abetting the transportation of visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Robinson was indicted in October 2010. Testimony during the three-day trial established that in 2009 and 2010, agents with the FBI in Cleveland, Ohio, were conducting an online undercover investigation targeting people who used the Internet to share child pornography. An FBI agent testified at trial that, as part of the undercover investigation, he encountered a person using the name “rr75727” on the Internet and discovered that rr75727 was making child pornography available to others who wanted to download it from him. The FBI agent in Cleveland downloaded two videos and 18 images of child pornography directly from rr75727’s computer.
During the course of the trial, FBI agents from the Cleveland, Philadelphia, and Charlotte Offices testified that the investigation into the identity of rr75727 led to a home in Charlotte, and Charlotte FBI executed a search warrant at the home in May 2010. According to trial records, FBI agents determined that although Robinson was not at the home at the time of the search, he lived at the home when he was on breaks from attending college at Virginia Military Institute. On the day of the search, FBI agents seized several computers, including two that belonged to Robinson. Further investigation revealed that Robinson attempted to destroy evidence contained on one of the computers after he found out the FBI was investigating him.
At trial, an FBI computer forensic examiner told the jury that he examined Robinson’s computers and found child pornography, including the same two videos and 18 pictures that the FBI agent in Cleveland had downloaded from Robinson on January 6, 2010, on both computers.
The defendant has been in local federal custody in the Western District of North Carolina since November 2010. He will be transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons upon designation of a federal facility. All federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.
The investigation was led by the Cleveland and Charlotte offices of the FBI. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Kimlani M. Ford and Maria K. Vento of U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte.
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 U.S. 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.