Houston Resident Sentenced for Distributing and Possessing Child Pornography

HOUSTON—Nicholas Martin Rogers has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in federal prison for distributing and possessing child pornography, United States Attorney Kenneth Magidson announced today. Rogers, 29, of Houston, pleaded guilty to two counts of distributing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography on March 9, 2012.

This morning, U.S. District Judge David Hittner considered the number and types of images involved and whether Rogers poses a danger to the community and subsequently handed him a sentence of 151 months. Under the sentencing guidelines, Rogers was held responsible for 87,000 images. Hittner further ordered Rogers to serve 25 years of supervised release following his release from prison during which time Rogers will have to comply with a number of special conditions designed to protect the children and prohibit the use of the Internet. He will also be required to register as a sex offender.

At the time of his guilty plea, Rogers acknowledged he possessed more than 12,000 images and 1,000 videos on March 3, 2011. These images contained children under the age of 12 engaged in sexual acts with adults, bondage, and lewd and lascivious displays among other things.

According to the factual basis read in court at the time of his plea, the investigation began when an FBI agent in Los Angeles and Chicago discovered a person sharing numerous files, the majority of which depicted explicit images of children. That person was later identified at Rogers.

FBI Houston assumed the case and later executed a search warrant at his Houston residence along with other members of the Innocent Images Task Force. Several items were seized including, but not limited to, a thumb drive, four hard drives, a Dell computer, a Sprint smart phone, an SD chip, as well as several CD/DVDs, all of which contained child pornography. At that time, Rogers admitted he had large amounts of child pornography on his computer and that he could not get rid of anything.

Later forensic review concluded that approximately 12,000 images and 1,000 videos of child pornography were on the devices. Several of the images and videos depicted the penetration of a minors under the age of 5 and bondage involving children. There were several videos more than five minutes in length. An additional 18 CD-Rs and 4 DVD-Rs were found to contain an additional 5,000 to 7,000 images and 700 to 1,000 videos of child pornography.

The charges against Rogers are the result of an investigation conducted by members of the Houston FBI Innocent Images Task Force, which focuses its attention on investigating offenses involving the exploitation of children via the Internet.

This case, prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Sherri Zack, 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.”