District Resident Pleads Guilty to Receiving Child Pornography

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Mark Stephen Longo, 39, of Washington, D.C., pled guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to receiving child pornography, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips. The Honorable Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. accepted the plea, and scheduled sentencing in the matter for March 19, 2010. As a result of his plea, Longo faces a maximum statutory prison sentence of 20 years and a fine of $250,000, and must register as a sex offender. Based upon an agreement between the parties, Longo is likely to be sentenced to a period of incarceration between 84 and 96 months.

According to the government’s evidence, during 2008 and 2009, Longo met between ten and twelve times with another individual in the District of Columbia. During those meetings, Longo and the other individual watched and traded child pornography. In late June 2009, Longo came to the attention of law enforcement when Longo chatted online with an undercover lawenforcement agent. The chats culminated in an agreement to meet the undercover agent at a hotel in the District of Columbia so that Longo and the agent could engage in illegal sex with a 12-yearold boy. Law enforcement arrested Longo when he arrived for the meeting. Federal and District law-enforcement agents later executed a search warrant at Longo’s home, where they found 101 videos and 44 photographs of minor children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

In announcing the guilty plea, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillips commended the outstanding investigative work of the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Mr. Phillips also praised the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen J. Spiegelhalter, who is prosecuting the case.