U.S. Attorney Emphasizes Prosecution of Producers and Distributers of Child Pornography

A new national strategy for preventing child sexual exploitation reinforces efforts in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Alabama to protect children from such crimes through continual prosecution of child pornography and online enticement cases, said U.S. Attorney Joyce White Vance.

In late June, the U.S. Attorney’s Office won a life sentence against a sexual predator and a 12 ½-year sentence against a man who received child pornography on the Internet and on his cell phone, Vance said. The office’s most recent child exploitation indictment came last week when a grand jury charged a 66-year-old Jefferson County man, WALTER D. SPRUILL, with using the Internet to distribute, receive, and possess images of child pornography.

A former part-time middle school coach in Hoover remains in jail awaiting trial on an April indictment for receiving, distributing and possessing child pornography, Vance said.

“Our work is aimed at catching and prosecuting people who make pornography using children and who distribute that pornography,” Vance said. “The sexual exploitation of children is reprehensible criminal conduct that we have no intention of permitting in this district,” she said. “We are devoting substantial resources and working together with our state and local partners to investigate and prosecute those crimes.”

In the last 60 days, the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, led by Birmingham’s Resident Agent in Charge Jesse Blakeman, and the Hoover Police Department, under the direction of Chief Nick Derzis, have launched a joint undercover operation to target online child exploitation. The FBI office in Birmingham, led by Special Agent in Charge Patrick Maley, has launched a separate online undercover initiative, Vance said.

The U.S. Attorney discussed her office’s prosecution of child exploitation cases in conjunction with today’s announcement of a National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.

Holder issued a press release and presented the strategy as a blueprint to strengthen the fight against crimes of child pornography, online enticement, child sex tourism, commercial sexual exploitation and sexual exploitation in Indian Country.

Since FY 2006, the Department of Justice has filed 8,464 child exploitation cases against 8,637 defendants through Project Safe Childhood (PSC). These cases include prosecutions of online enticement of children to engage in sexual activity, interstate transportation of children to engage in sexual activity, and the production, distribution and possession of child pornography.

Since March 1 in North Alabama, the U.S. Attorney’s Office has charged at least 15 PSC cases and realized sentences ranging from 3 ½ years to life in prison. Among those sentences are:

• LIFE – JOHN LAWSON SIMONS, 37, of Huntsville, for child pornography and obscenity offenses, and for repeatedly seeking out young girls for sex between 2002 and 2008. SIMONS admitted to multiple incidents of either traveling to other states or transporting young girls back to Alabama to sexually abuse them. He met the girls either on the Internet, or by introducing himself to them in public places, such as Wal-Mart.
• 12 ½ YEARS – CURTIS EARL ESTES, 38, for using the Internet to receive images of child pornography. He also admitted in his plea agreement that he received pornographic images of a 14-year-old on his cell phone.
• 20 YEARS – OSCAR COPLEN RAST JR., 54, of Shelby County, for producing images of child pornography. RAST admitted he enticed an 11-year-old girl and an 8-year-old boy to engage in sexually explicit conduct so he could record it.
• 10 YEARS – MICHAEL ROY SHARPE, 64, a former Guntersville pediatrician, for possessing child pornography. He had admitted to having sex with a 15-year-old girl, while she was his patient, and had pornographic images of her on his cell phone.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office works regularly with ICE, the Hoover Police Department, the U.S. Secret Service, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FBI in investigating and prosecuting PSC cases. The office also has the support of the Secret Service, the Alabama Bureau of Investigation, Alabama District Attorneys’ Offices and the National Computer Forensic Institute in Hoover, which provide significant computer forensic support in investigating online crimes.

The state’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICAC) is another organization working to combat Internet-based online child victimization. It refers cases to the U.S. Attorney’s Office and directs federal grant money to local departments to investigate online child exploitation. The Alabama task force is headed by ABI Sgt. Ricky Agerton and funded by a U.S. Department of Justice grant. ICAC members conduct online undercover investigations, and forensic analysis of computers seized in investigations.