Westmoreland County Man Sentenced to 21 Years in Prison for Producing Child Pornography

PITTSBURGH—A Westmoreland County man has been sentenced in federal court to 252 months of imprisonment, 180 months of which will run concurrent with his state conviction, and 72 months of which will run consecutive to any state sentence, and was ordered to serve a lifetime term of supervised release on his conviction for production of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor, United States Attorney David J. Hickton announced today.

United States District Judge Mark R. Hornak imposed the sentence on Timothy Eugene Shearer, 55, formerly of Avonmore, Pennsylvania.

According to information presented to the court, from February 2009 to September 2009 and in or around October of 2006, Shearer persuaded, induced, and coerced a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of that conduct, namely, a digital video and other images. The indictment also charged that Shearer possessed visual depictions, namely, digital image files and a video file, depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

Assistant United States Attorney Jessica Lieber Smolar prosecuted this case on behalf of the government.

U.S. Attorney Hickton commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Pennsylvania State Police for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Shearer.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.