Appellate Court Affirms 30-Year Sentence for Internet Predator/Child Pornography Trafficker

Martin C. Carlson, United States Attorney for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, announced today that the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has affirmed the sentence of Withberto Velazquez, age 34. Velazquez is currently serving a 30-year prison sentence for child pornography trafficking and using the internet to attempt to entice a minor to engage in illegal sexual conduct.

Velazquez was indicted by a federal grand jury on November 13, 2007, as a result of an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Scranton Police.

Velazquez pleaded guilty on May 9, 2008. He admitted to committing the crimes between March 2007, and November 2007, when he was residing in Biloxi, Mississippi. He was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge A. Richard Caputo on August 15, 2008.

In appealing his sentence, Velazquez claimed that the 30-year prison sentence was “unreasonably harsh” because the child pornography sentencing guidelines were not “empirically based,” and that a sentence of 15 years in prison would have been sufficient but not greater than necessary to accomplish the purposes of sentencing. The Third Circuit Court ruled, however, that Judge Caputo engaged in a lengthy and meaningful discussion of the appropriate sentencing factors and imposed a substantively reasonable sentence. The Court expressly rejected Velazquez’s argument that because the child pornography guidelines were established by an act of Congress instead of being a product of empirical research, that it was an abuse of discretion for the district court to rely on those guidelines. The Court noted that “in evaluating the magnitude of the harm caused by child pornography, we defer to the findings made by Congress.”

Carlson noted that the Court’s decision affirming the sentence also means that Velazquez will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for life after he serves his 30-year prison sentence.

Carlson noted that the case and appeal were handled by Assistant United States Attorney Francis P. Sempa.