Hogsett Announces Sentence for Jeffersonville Child Pornographer

INDIANAPOLIS—Joseph H. Hogsett, United States Attorney, announced today that Thomas E. Barron, 49, of Jeffersonville, Indiana, was sentenced to 114 months in prison to be followed by lifetime supervised release for transporting and possessing child pornography. This follows an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Indiana State Police, the Brownsburg Police Department, and the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

During a hearing yesterday, Barron admitted that on June 7, 2010, he used a computer to transport child pornography images of actual minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct from his residence in Jeffersonville to other persons through the Internet. Barron’s collection of child pornography included more than 76,000 images and videos of very young children engaged in explicit sex acts.

The investigation began when undercover special agents of the FBI in New Jersey found that Barron was distributing child pornography to other persons through the Internet. The recipients of the child pornography were a group of his online friends. The FBI in New Jersey referred the case to the FBI in Indiana, who began an investigation with help from its state and local law enforcement partners in the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

A federal search warrant was executed at Barron’s residence in September, 2010, and he was arrested without incident at that time. Since his arrest, he has been in the custody of the United States Marshal. Before his arrest, Barron was working as a nurse in a Louisville Hospital.

During this search of Barron’s residence, the investigators found thousands of images and videos of child pornography on Barron’s home computer, including many images involving very young minors and sadistic abuse. Barron admitted that he used his computer to distribute this material to numerous persons throughout the United States and abroad. Barron did not charge other persons for the child pornography he provided to them. His apparent motive was to increase the size of his personal collection of child pornography by trading material with other collectors.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven D. DeBrota, who prosecuted the case for the government, Barron was sentenced to 114 months of imprisonment, to be followed by supervised release for the remainder of his life.

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.