Former Landover Man Sentenced to Over Eight Years in Prison for Distributing Child Pornography Online
Many Pornographic Images Were of Infants and Toddlers; Was a Security Officer at the Pentagon at the Time of the Crime and His Arrest
| U.S. Attorney’s Office July 22, 2011 |
GREENBELT, MD—U.S. District Judge Roger W. Titus sentenced Martin C. Savage, age 27, formerly of Landover, Maryland, today to 97 months in prison followed by 20 years of supervised release for distributing child pornography. Judge Roger W. Titus ordered that upon his release from prison, Savage must register as a sex offender in the place where he resides, where he is an employee, and where he is a student, under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA).
The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Colonel Terrence Sheridan, Superintendent of the Maryland State Police; and Chief Kirk W. Blouin of the Palm Beach County Police Department.
According to Savage’s plea agreement, an undercover police officer from Palm Beach County, Florida accessed a peer-to-peer network on March 1, 2010 and downloaded approximately 100 images made available by Savage. The vast majority of the images contained photos and videos of child pornography, many of which were of infants and toddlers.
On April 6, 2010, law enforcement in Maryland executed a search warrant at Savage’s residence in Landover and seized a computer and hard drive that contained thousands of images of child pornography. A further review of Savage’s hard drive revealed more than 100 images involving bondage and sado-masochism. Savage admitted to agents that he had been downloading child pornography for about three years and shared child pornography via the peer-to-peer network.
According to court documents and testimony, at the time of the crime and his arrest, Savage was employed as a security officer at the Pentagon.
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.projectsafechildhood.gov. Details about Maryland’s program are available at www.justice.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.
United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein commended the FBI, the Maryland State Police and the Palm Beach County Police Department for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Lenzner, who prosecuted the case.