February 10, 2015

Ronald Randolph Radford Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison for Distributing Child Pornography

GREENEVILLE, TN—Ronald Randolph Radford, 68, of Johnson City, Tennessee was sentenced on February 9, 2015, to fifteen years in prison followed by a ten-year term of supervised release with special conditions of release, by the Honorable J. Ronnie Greer, United States District Judge for the Eastern District of Tennessee at Greeneville. The sentence was the result of a guilty plea by Radford on August 14, 2014, to a federal grand jury indictment charging him with distributing, receiving, and possessing child pornography. Radford has been in federal custody since his arrest on April 17, 2014.

The indictment and subsequent conviction of Radford was the result of an investigation conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, and the Johnson City Police Department.

At sentencing, District Judge Greer noted the seriousness of the offense Radford committed, the high image count of Radford’s child porn collection, the need to promote respect for the law, the need to adequately deter such offenses in the general public, the need to protect the public, and Radford’s personal history and characteristics.

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.

Assistant United States Attorney Helen Smith represented the United States.