Fairfax Man Indicted for Producing Child Pornography and Attempted Enticement of a Minor

ALEXANDRIA, VA—Douglas Lee Payne, Jr., 31, of Fairfax, Virginia, has been indicted by a federal grand jury on child exploitation related charges.

Neil H. MacBride, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Valerie Parlave, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Lt. Colonel James A. Morris, Acting Fairfax County Chief of Police made the announcement after the indictment was returned.

Payne was indicted on February 6, 2013, on one count of production of child pornography, which carries a mandatory minimum penalty of 15 years and a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison; one count of possession of child pornography, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison; one count of attempted enticement of a minor, which carries a mandatory minimum of 10 years and a maximum of life; and one count of attempted travel to engage in illicit sexual conduct, which carries a maximum of 30 years in prison, if convicted.

According to the indictment and other court documents, during the investigation of a Fairfax County probation violation in December 2011, evidence was discovered of communications between Payne and a minor victim in Indiana. These communications involved both text messages and Skype chats. In these communications Payne asked the minor victim for nude images and instructed her on how to pose. Payne had at least one child pornography image of the minor victim, which she had sent to him. Payne and the minor victim also had conversations about Payne going to Indiana to visit a cousin and that he would stop to see the minor victim and have sex with her on his way home. In addition, Payne had other child pornography images in his possession. On December 28, 2011, Payne was on his way to Indiana when he was instructed to come home for a meeting with his Fairfax County probation officer.

This case was investigated by the Fairfax County Police Department and the FBI Washington Field Office’s Child Exploitation Task Force. Special Assistant United States Attorney Alicia J. Yass is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.

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.justice.gov/psc.

Criminal indictments are only charges and not evidence of guilt. A defendant is presumed to be innocent until and unless proven guilty.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.justice.gov/usao/vae.