Mesquite Man Sentenced to Nearly 18 Years in Federal Prison for Advertising Child Pornography on the Internet

DALLAS—Jonathan Ryan Vittitow, 30, of Mesquite, Texas, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay to 210 months in federal prison and a lifetime of supervised release following his guilty plea in January 2012 to one count of advertising child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas. Vittitow has been in custody since his arrest in October 2011.

According to documents filed in the case, Vittitow used peer-to-peer file-sharing software to: 1) seek, and offer to receive, child pornography videos of boys age six and under; and 2) advertised files available for sharing that included child pornography of minor girls and other preteen children.

In addition, according to the court documents, when Dallas FBI agents executed a search warrant at his residence, a cursory review of his computer determined that it contained approximately 20,000 images and videos, mostly of child pornography. In fact, Vittitow admitted that his child pornography collection is approximately 120 gigabytes in size.

Court documents further indicate that investigators located chat logs showing that Vttitow and his online “friends” exchanged and discussed child pornography, including “hands-on” offending. In some conversations, Vittitow asked how to drug three children to sexually assault them.

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 tab “Resources.”

The FBI and the Plano Police Department investigated; Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Sparks prosecuted.