Wichita County Man Sentenced to More Than 12 Years in Federal Prison on Child Pornography Conviction

WICHITA FALLS, TX—Clifford Eugene Huffman, of Burkburnett, Texas, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Reed C. O’Connor to 150 months (12.5 years) in federal prison, following his guilty plea in August to one count of transporting and shipping child pornography, announced James T. Jacks, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas. In addition, Judge O’Connor ordered that Huffman serve a lifetime of supervised release and register as a sex offender. He was remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshal.

According to documents filed in the case, in October 2007, an FBI special agent used a version of a file-sharing software, Limewire, to download images of child pornography from Limewire user Huffman. In early February 2008, agents with the FBI, and members from local law enforcement, executed a search warrant at Huffman’s home in Burkburnett. A forensic examination of the computers seized revealed that Huffman had more than 600 images of child pornography on a desktop computer that he used to trade child pornography images with file-sharing software. Huffman also had a laptop computer, which he had previously used to acquire child pornography and which contained deleted and saved images of child pornography.

Huffman admitted that he had used Limewire and other file-sharing software to download images, and permit others to obtain images of child pornography from him.

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.

The case was investigated by the FBI, the Burkburnett Police Department and the Wichita Falls Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aisha Saleem was in charge of the prosecution.