Federal Jury Finds Charlotte Man Guilty of Child Pornography Charge

CHARLOTTE, NC—A federal jury in the Western District of North Carolina, sitting in Charlotte, convicted Rashod Sentelle Robinson, 27, of Charlotte, following a three-day trial which ended on Thursday, May 5, 2011, announced Anne M. Tompkins, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of North Carolina. U.S. Attorney Tompkins is joined in making today’s announcement by Chris Briese, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Charlotte Division.

A federal grand jury indicted Robinson on October 19, 2010. The indictment charged Robinson with one count of aiding and abetting the transportation of visual depictions of minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct. Testimony at trial established that in 2009 and 2010, agents with the FBI in Cleveland, Ohio were conducting an online undercover investigation targeting people who used the Internet to share child pornography. At trial, an FBI agent testified that he encountered a person using the name rr75727 on the Internet and discovered that rr75727 was making child pornography available to others who wanted to download it from him. The FBI agent in Cleveland downloaded two videos and 18 images of child pornography directly from rr75727’s computer.

During the trial, agents from the Cleveland, Philadelphia and Charlotte offices of the FBI testified that the investigation into the identity of rr75727 led to a home located in Charlotte, and that the Charlotte FBI executed a search warrant at the home on May 26, 2010. On that date, FBI agents determined that Robinson lived at the home when he was on breaks from attending college at Virginia Military Institute. On the day of the search, FBI agents seized several computers, including two that belonged to Robinson.

An FBI computer forensic examiner told the jury that he examined Robinson’s computers and found child pornography, including the same two videos and 18 pictures that the FBI agent in Cleveland had downloaded from Robinson on January 6, 2010, on both computers. The defendant has been in local federal custody in the Western District of North Carolina since November 30, 2010 and will remain in custody until his sentencing date, which has not been set yet. He faces a mandatory minimum of five years and a maximum of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine or both.

The investigation was led by the Cleveland and Charlotte offices of the FBI. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Kimlani M. Ford and Maria K. Vento of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte.

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 U.S. 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.

U.S. v. Rashod Sentelle Robinson
Case Number 3:10CR226