Former Air Force Sergeant Sentenced to 15 Years in Prison for Paying to View Minors Engaging in Online Sex Acts
While on Active Duty in Aviano, Italy, Caley Paid for Access to Live Sexually Explicit Video of a 4-Year-Old Girl Living in Bremen, Georgia

ATLANTA—CHARLES CALEY, 49, of Warner Robins, Georgia, was sentenced to federal prison by United States Senior District Court Judge J. Owen Forrester for enticing several minors to engage in sexually explicit acts that he viewed via webcam while he was posted to the United States Air Force base in Aviano, Italy. CALEY has already been court martialed by the Air Force for related child pornography charges and is already serving a 13-month term for those crimes.

United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said, “This case sadly and starkly illustrates the global reach the Internet has given to pedophiles. The defendant, while being paid by American taxpayers to live and work in Italy, used government resources to gain access to a very young child living here in Georgia to engage in sexually explicit acts—acts he observed in real-time while he was online. I commend the hard work by the Air Force, the FBI, and the prosecutors of this office in bringing this man to justice.”

CALEY was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison to be followed by a lifetime of supervised release. CALEY will also be required to register as a sex offender upon his release from custody. The younger victim’s mother earlier pleaded guilty to distributing child pornography and is currently in federal prison.

According to United States Attorney Yates, the charges, and other information presented in court: In late 2006, CALEY began chatting online with the mother of one of the victims, a woman who lived in Bremen, Georgia. CALEY was then a master sergeant in the United States Air Force, assigned to the U.S. air base in Aviano, Italy. As CALEY and the victim’s mother became more intimate through online communications, they began to express shared interests in underage and incestual sexual acts. By the spring of 2007, in exchange for money orders that CALEY sent from Italy to Georgia, the mother was making her 4-year-old daughter “available” to CALEY online. CALEY, by way of a webcam, would observe the victim as she engaged in a variety of sexually explicit acts.

This pay-per-view scheme expanded at one point to include two other older juvenile females who would frequent the victim’s household. CALEY, through the webcam, observed these two girls in sexually suggestive poses as well.

The case broke in late 2007, when the FBI learned of similar conduct by the victim’s mother and another subject. Agents found evidence of CALEY’s explicit online chats on the mother’s computer and eventually traced him to Aviano. Armed with this information, FBI agents flew to Italy in January 2008 to confront CALEY, who quickly admitted to paying for video access to the young girl. CALEY was then subject to Air Force court martial proceedings on the basis of child pornography that was found on his computer in Aviano. That matter was resolved in September 2009 and CALEY was turned over to federal authorities.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Criminal Investigative Division of the United States Air Force.

Assistant United States Attorneys Francey Hakes and Robert McBurney prosecuted the case.

For further information please contact Sally Q. Yates, United States Attorney, or Charysse L. Alexander, Executive Assistant United States Attorney, through Patrick Crosby, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Attorney’s Office, at 404-581-6016. The Internet address for the HomePage for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is www.justice.gov/usao/gan.