Albuquerque Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Child Pornography Offense

ALBUQUERQUE—This afternoon in federal court, Robert W. Schmidt, 55, of Albuquerque, entered a guilty plea to transportation of a visual depiction of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct under a plea agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. At sentencing, Schmidt faces a maximum penalty of not less than five years and up to twenty years’ imprisonment to be followed by up to a lifetime of supervised release. Schmidt also will be required to register as a sex offender after he completes his prison sentence. Schmidt has been in federal custody since his arrest on April 1, 2011, and remains detained pending his sentencing hearing, which has yet to be set.

Schmidt entered his guilty plea to count one of a four-count superseding indictment charging him with two counts of transportation of child pornography and two counts of possession of child pornography. Under the plea agreement, counts two, three, and four will be dismissed after Schmidt is sentenced.

U.S. Attorney Kenneth J. Gonzales said that Schmidt was arrested as a result of an investigation by the Albuquerque Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the New Mexico Regional Forensic Computer Lab. Court records reflect that the investigation was initiated after a maintenance employee at the apartment complex where Schmidt was a tenant reported seeing child pornography on a computer in Schmidt’s apartment. The maintenance man observed the child pornography after entering Schmidt’s apartment to facilitate an emergency repair. Based on the maintenance man’s report, the Albuquerque Police Department executed a search warrant at Schmidt’s apartment and seized computers and computer-related media, which contained thousands of child pornography images and videos. In his plea agreement, Schmidt acknowledged that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has determined that the child pornography images found on his computers and computer-related media included 1,244 images of 48 children who have been identified as child pornography victims and have been rescued.

In entering his guilty plea today, Schmidt admitted bringing child pornography from Illinois to New Mexico when he moved from Rockford, Illinois to Albuquerque in June 2010.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Charlyn E. Rees and Raul Torrez, and was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice (DOJ) to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and DOJ’s Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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.projectsafechildhood.gov.

The case also was brought as part of the New Mexico Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force’s (ICAC Task Force) mission to locate, track, and capture Internet child sexual predators and Internet child pornographers in New Mexico. There are 61 federal, state and local law enforcement agencies associated with the ICAC Task Force, which is funded by a grant administered by the NMAGO. Anyone with information relating to suspected child predators and suspected child abuse is encouraged to contact federal or local law enforcement.