Man Deported from Mexico and Convicted on Federal Child Pornography Offenses is Sentenced to Nearly 22 Years in Federal Prison

DALLAS—Former Mesquite, Texas resident James Gregory Morris, 44, was sentenced today by Chief U.S. District Judge Sidney A. Fitzwater to 262 months in federal prison following his conviction in July 2010 on several child pornography offenses, announced U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. Mexican authorities deported Morris and the FBI took him into custody in September 2009. He was flown back to Dallas to face the charges in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury in April 2009, and has been in custody since that time. Today, Judge Fitzwater also ordered that Morris serve a lifetime of supervised release.

Specifically, the court convicted Morris on two counts of receipt of child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. The government presented evidence at Morris’s bench trial that in September and October 2006, he downloaded images of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct from the Internet onto his home computer. A detective with the Dallas Police Department testified that Morris possessed 1500 still images and 118 videos of prepubescent boys and girls engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

According to the government’s motion for upward departure, the investigation revealed that Morris had been collecting child pornography as early as 2004. Contrary to what Morris told investigators, he had downloaded images of child pornography the day before the execution of a search warrant at his home. Most of the images depicted children under age 12 and included sadistic images showing physical and emotional trauma of the children who were bound and tortured.

That motion goes on to state that during the pendency of Morris’s trial, he tried to obstruct and obfuscate the truth about his criminal activity by filing civil suits against the Judge and prosecutor; alleging in bad faith that the prosecutor and the judge are unethical; claiming to be a sovereign and independent state instead of a person; filing UCC financing statements to secure interests to initiate redemption, and insisting that the criminal laws did not apply to him. Baseless and spurious motions and notices, designed to harass the prosecutor and the court, have continued even after he was convicted.

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 Dallas Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force and the FBI. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Camille Sparks and Lisa J. Miller prosecuted.