FRESNO, CA—United States District Judge Lawrence J. O’Neill sentenced Charles Max Pollock, 43, of Las Vegas, to nine years in prison, to be followed by 20 years of supervised release, for travel in interstate commerce with the intent to engage in criminal sexual activity, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced.

Pollock’s sentencing followed his guilty plea, which entered on August 27, 2014. According to court documents, Pollock used an alias and posed as a photographer to contact an adult female who had posted an advertisement on Craigslist in Bakersfield seeking a modeling opportunity. The ad noted that her minor son had experience as a model. Pollock traveled from Las Vegas to Bakersfield, rented a hotel room, and took sexually explicit images of the minor. Pollock returned to Las Vegas and continued to communicate with the minor and his mother. Pollock arranged to meet the minor and the minor’s girlfriend at a different hotel in Bakersfield on August 15, 2013. He encouraged the minors to engage in sexually explicit conduct for purposes of taking photographs of the minors. Pollock paid the minors for each of the “photo shoots” and encouraged them not to tell anyone about the conduct.

Pollock is an attorney who has been licensed to practice law in Nevada and California. He has been in custody since September 20, 2013, when he was arrested on state charges for a separate offense in Las Vegas. Pollock has also previously pleaded guilty to those state charges, and he will be sentenced by the state court in Nevada now that his federal court proceedings are completed.

This case was the product of an investigation by the FBI and the Bakersfield Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney David Gappa prosecuted the case.

This case has been 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 those who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.justice.gov/psc.