Tarrant County Men Sentenced in Unrelated Child Pornography Cases

FORT WORTH, TX—In U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas, today, U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means sentenced two Tarrant County men to lengthy federal prison sentences following their guilty pleas late last year in separate, unrelated child pornography cases, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña.

In the first case, Judge Means sentenced David Wayne Hatcher, 42, of Richland Hills, Texas, to 108 months in federal prison following his guilty plea in December 2012 to two counts of possession of child pornography. Judge Means remanded Hatcher, who has been on bond, into custody following the hearing. According to documents filed in the case, when agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed a federal search warrant at Hatcher’s home in 2011, they seized computer equipment and related storage media that contained video files of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

In the other case, Judge Means sentenced Kristopher D. King, 25, of Euless, Texas, to 132 months in federal prison, following his guilty plea in November 2012 to one count of transportation of child pornography. King has been in custody since his arrest in September 2012. According to documents filed in the case, when FBI agents executed a federal search warrant at King’s home in 2010, King advised them that he had been using a peer-to-peer file sharing program to trade files depicting child pornography. A forensic examination of King’s external hard drive revealed videos and images containing visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

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.”

ICE-HSI; the Orange County, Texas Sheriff’s Office; and the FBI investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aisha Saleem prosecuted.