Dallas Man Sentenced to 150 Months in Federal Prison for Transporting and Shipping Child Pornography

DALLAS—Danny Jack Harder, 39, was sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Ed Kinkeade to 150 months in federal prison and a lifetime of supervised release, following his guilty plea in March 2013 to one count of transporting and shipping child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas. Harder has been in custody since his arrest in December 2012 on a related federal criminal complaint.

According to documents filed in the case, the investigation of Harder began on October 25, 2013, when an officer with the Plano Police Department, operating in an undercover capacity, encountered an individual online in a peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing network who appeared to have several files containing child pornography.

According to the factual resume filed in the case, on November 15, 2012, special agents with the FBI executed a search warrant at Harder’s residence in Dallas. Harder admitted that he intentionally and knowingly received and transported child pornography via P2P file sharing software and/or networks. He also acknowledged that his P2P shared folder contained well over 350 videos of child pornography. A forensic review of his computer and computer-related items indicated that he provided the password to his P2P shared folder approximately 265 times in 2011-2012 and that on October 25, 2012, his shared folder contained the equivalent of more than 600 images available for sharing.

The case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative, which was launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice, to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals, who sexually exploit children and identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit http://www.justice.gov/psc/ and click on the tab “Resources.”

The investigation was conducted by the FBI and the Plano Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa J. Miller prosecuted.