United States Attorney Deborah R. Gilg announced that Jeffrey R. Rongish, age 31, of Omaha, was sentenced in federal court in Omaha, Nebraska for receiving and distributing child pornography. The Honorable Lyle E. Strom, Senior United States District Court Judge sentenced Rongish to a 78 month term of imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal prison system. After his release from prison Rongish will begin a twelve year term of supervised release and be required to register as a sex offender.

On October 28, 2013, a Douglas County Sheriff’s deputy using an undercover computer detected a computer at Rongish’s northwest Omaha residence offering to share child pornography. A search warrant was executed by members of the FBI Omaha Cyber Crimes Task Force on January 24, 2014.

Rongish admitted downloading child pornography for over 15 years. He provided agents with his encryption password. Agents recovered 4,5000 images of child pornography. The images included children ranging from infants to teens engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

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.

This matter was investigated by the Omaha FBI's Cyber Crime Task Force (CCTF), of which the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office is a partner. The Omaha CCTF is a multi-jurisdictional task force consisting of eleven federal, state and local law enforcement agencies from Nebraska and Iowa. The mission of the Omaha CCTF is to investigate and apprehend high technology criminals and to protect our communities by preventing high technology crime and national security threats involving computers and computer networks. The Omaha CCTF was established on the premise that the capabilities of law enforcement agencies to investigate computer and high technology related crimes are enhanced in a task force setting involving the sharing of resources and expertise.