Halethorpe Man Sentenced to Over 10 Years in Prison for Distributing Child Pornography
Pornographic Images of Children Included Depictions of Sadistic Conduct as well as Sexual Contact Between Defendant and a Developmentally Disabled Female
| U.S. Attorney’s Office January 13, 2012 |
BALTIMORE, MD—U.S. District Judge James K. Bredar sentenced Frank Robert Tucker, Jr., age 50, of Halethorpe, Maryland, today to 121 months in prison followed by lifetime supervised release for distributing child pornography. Judge Bredar ordered that upon his release from prison, Tucker 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; Special Agent in Charge William Winter of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Homeland Security Investigations; Colonel Marcus L. Brown, Superintendent of the Maryland State Police; and Baltimore County State’s Attorney Scott Shellenberger.
According to Tucker’s plea agreement, on December 28, 2009, a Maryland State Police investigator accessed a public peer to peer network shared by Tucker and found that Tucker had 89 video files available for download, most of the names of which were consistent with child pornography. The investigator downloaded video files from Tucker’s computer which contained visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct.
On April 14, 2010, Maryland State Police searched Tucker’s residence. Images of child pornography were found on a computer and the external hard drive, including sadistic conduct or other depictions of violence. The external hard drive contained videos of children engaged in sexually explicit conduct, including images of bondage. According to government statements made to the court, numerous nude photos and videos of a developmentally disabled female were also found, including images of sexual contact between the female and Tucker.
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, ICE- HSI, Maryland State Police, and Baltimore County State’s Attorney’s Office for their work in the investigation. Mr. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Budlow, who prosecuted the case.