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Press Release

Alaskan Physician Convicted Of Internet Child Pornography Crimes

For Immediate Release
U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Alaska

Anchorage, Alaska - U.S. Attorney Karen L. Loeffler announced today that on July 28, 2015, a federal jury in Juneau, Alaska, convicted a physician from Wrangell, Alaska, of distributing and receiving child pornography.

Greg Alan Salard, 54, of Wrangell, Alaska, was found guilty after a six-day trial before U.S. District Judge Timothy Burgess.  Sentencing has been scheduled for October 9, 2015, in Juneau.  The maximum penalty for each count of conviction is not less than five years and up to 20 years imprisonment, a fine of $250,000, a five-year to life term of supervised release, and a $100 special assessment.

According to evidence presented at trial, starting in May 2014, an FBI investigation linked the defendant’s Internet Protocol (IP) address with the trading of child pornography through an online peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing network.  Such P2P networks are commonly used by individuals seeking to acquire digital contraband, including child pornography, and copywrited movies, music, and books.  Through their investigation of the network, law enforcement was able to connect to the defendant’s IP address on June 5, 2014, and download from the defendant’s computer a portion of a 4-minute video that showed an adult male molesting a four-year-old child.  An additional observation of the defendant’s computer being on the network and making files of child pornography available to other users was made on October 1, 2014.

Based on the above information, law enforcement obtained a search warrant for the defendant’s residence.  During surveillance of the property on the morning of October 15, 2014, law enforcement watched the defendant’s wife leave the property, leaving the defendant as the only occupant of the house.  Shortly thereafter, the defendant started his P2P program and his IP address was observed offering a file of child pornography.  This video showed sex scenes involving prepubescent children.

Police arrived at the defendant’s house approximately 10 minutes after his computer came online.  After knocking on the door, it took approximately eight minutes for the defendant to answer.  During the time that police waited for a response from the defendant, he was deleting files from his computer – including the file observed by police that morning, deleting his search history from his file-sharing program, and had started a program on his computer to erase files.  This wiping software was 35 percent complete by the time police located the defendant’s computer and stopped it.

Pursuant to the terms of the search warrant, law enforcement seized the defendant’s laptop computer and searched it for evidence of child pornography.  A computer forensic examiner was able to recover the deleted file that the defendant had offered to the P2P network on the morning of the search, as well as evidence that the defendant had played that video on his computer.  Also located on the computer was evidence that the defendant had used multiple file-sharing programs to search for images of child pornography, had downloaded more than 500 files of child pornography between February 1, 2014, and October 15, 2014, had viewed those images through various media players located on his computer, and had deleted evidence of that illegal activity on at least four separate instances.

The defendant is currently charged in Caddo Parish, Louisiana with Aggravated Rape in violation of Louisiana Revised Statute (R.S.) 14:42.  Specifically, he is alleged to have committed oral sexual intercourse with a victim under the age of 13.   He is expected to be extradited to Louisiana to face that charge following his sentencing in the federal case. 

This case was investigated by the FBI, with assistance from the U.S. Forest Service; Petersburg, Alaska Police Department; Wrangell, Alaska Police Department; and Juneau, Alaska Police Department.  The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Reardon and Trial Attorney Leslie Williams Fisher of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.  Led by U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the 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.

Updated July 29, 2015

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Project Safe Childhood
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