Fallon Man Sentenced to 15 Years in Federal Prison for Child Pornography Conviction

RENO, NV—A man was sentenced today to a mandatory minimum 15 years in federal prison and lifetime supervised release for his conviction on child pornography charges, announced Daniel G. Bogden, United States Attorney for the District of Nevada.

John Williams, 34, of Fallon, Nev., was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Robert C. Jones. Williams pleaded guilty in July to Notice to Distribute Child Pornography.

According to the court records, in late 2009, an FBI agent in New York engaged in an undercover operation to locate child pornography on the Internet. The agent determined that an individual using the name Radboy had posted over 15,000 images of child pornography on a file-sharing network. The images included photos of prepubescent children under the age of 12 engaged in sexual conduct with adults. Radboy also published sexually explicit titles and content information for some of the images, thereby offering to share and distribute them with other users of the network. When contacted online by the undercover agent, Radboy provided the undercover agent instructions on how to download images, and the agent downloaded approximately 11 images containing child pornography. Further investigation revealed that the Internet address Radboy was using was connected to a computer at John Williams’ residence in Fallon, Nevada. On March 1, 2010, investigating agents executed a search warrant at the residence and recovered child pornography from Williams’ computer. Williams gave several statements to law enforcement in which he admitted that he possessed and shared child pornography online.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Innocent Images Task Force with assistance from the Nevada Attorney General’s Office and the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Ronald R. Rachow and Carla B. Higginbotham.

The 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 U.S. Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the U.S. Department of Justice, 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.