28-Year Sentence Received in Child Pornography Case

RALEIGH—A Wilmington, North Carolina, man was sentenced to 28 years in federal prison for manufacturing child pornography announced United States Attorney George E.B. Holding. In federal court on May 5, 2010, United States District Judge James C. Dever, III, sentenced CHRISTOPHER HANNIGAN, 26, to 336 months’ imprisonment followed by a life term of supervised release.

A Federal Grand Jury returned a Criminal Indictment on October 14, 2009. On January 13, 2010, HANNIGAN pled guilty to manufacturing child pornography.

In April, 2009, a Keene, New Hampshire, Police Department undercover agent notified law enforcement in North Carolina that he had received sexually explicit material from HANNIGAN. The undercover agent, who had been posing as a 14-year-old male and using Yahoo! Messenger and AOL Instant Messenger, engaged in sexually explicit conversations with HANNIGAN who had then sent several images and a video containing child pornography. The video portrayed a young male performing a sexual act in front of his webcam for HANNIGAN which HANNIGAN had recorded.

Mr. Holding commented, “I want to commend the work of the law enforcement officers involved in this case. They must remain diligent and aggressive and utilize all the tools at their disposal in order to fight the menace of child pornography and exploitation.”

This case was part of the Project Safe Childhood initiative, a national program aimed at ensuring that criminals exploiting children are effectively prosecuted by making full use of all available law enforcement resources at every level. For more information about this important national project, Project Safe Childhood, go to www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

Investigation of this case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Wilmington Police Department and the Keene, New Hampshire Police Department. Assistant United States Attorney Jay Exum represented the government.