EVANSVILLE—Josh J. Minkler, Acting United States Attorney, today announced the sentencing of an Evansville man for possessing and receiving sexually explicit material involving a minor. Floyd M. Thompson, 60, was sentenced by Chief U.S. District Judge Richard Young to 63 months (over five years) in federal prison. Thompson was the former postmaster at the Elberfeld post office.

"This Office initiated Operation Community Watch over two years ago with an unwavering resolve to find and prosecute those who exploit our children," Minkler said. "You are not anonymous online and if you engage in this type of behavior, you will be held accountable."

According to court documents, law enforcement first began their investigation in June 2013, when an undercover member of the Federal Bureau of Investigation=s Southern Indiana Child Exploitation Task Force connected with a computer that was allegedly sharing sexually-explicit images depicting young children. After downloading a number of these files from the user, investigators traced the online activity to a home in Evansville.

As a result of this information, a federal search warrant was executed in August 2013, at Thompson’s Evansville home. Federal agents interviewed Thompson and took his computer equipment into custody. A preliminary forensic examination of these computers revealed thousands of images and videos of child pornography depicting young girls between the ages of 3 and 12 years old.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and the Evansville Police Department.

FBI Special Agent in Charge W. Jay Abbott stated “The protection of children from sexual predators is one of our highest priorities. The FBI will use every means available to seek out those that prey on the most vulnerable.”

Thompson is being held at Volunteers of America in Evansville and will self-surrender when notified by the Bureau of Prisons.

According to Assistant U.S. Attorney Todd Shellenbarger, who prosecuted this case for the government, Thompson faces a lifetime of supervised release after serving his sentence.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a larger nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Hogsett pointed out that in the last Project Safe Childhood reporting year, the Office prosecuted 52 defendants, an increase of 37% over the prior year, and 49 defendants were convicted and sentenced. These are all-time records for the Office.

The greatest measure of the PSC program=s impact, however, is the identification and rescue of child victims of sexual exploitation and abuse. Over the last year, the U.S. Attorney=s Office successfully identified more than 120 child victims, including minors in Indiana, numerous places in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, and other countries around the world.

Led nationally 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.