Two Men Sentenced To Prison For Producing Child Pornography In Separate Cases

STATESVILLE, N.C. – A Lincoln County man was sentenced today in U.S. District Court in Statesville to 180 months in federal prison for producing child pornography, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Jill Westmoreland Rose of the Western District of North Carolina.  U.S. District Judge Richard L. Voorhees also ordered Antony Alexander Gonzalez Solorzano, 28, of Lincolnton, N.C. to serve a lifetime of supervised release and to register as a sex offender.

John A. Strong, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Charlotte Division joins Acting U.S. Attorney Rose in making today’s announcement.

According to the criminal indictment, from January to March 2013, Solorzano did employ, use, persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing a visual depiction of such conduct.  Court records show that Solorzano possessed both images and videos of the underage victim which he kept stored on his computer.  According to court records and today’s sentencing hearing, law enforcement became aware of Solorzano’s conduct while investigating him for sharing files containing child pornography over the Internet.          

Solorzano pleaded guilty to the one count of production of child pornography in June 2014.  He has been in federal custody since November 2013.  Upon designation of a federal facility, he will be transferred to the custody of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. Federal sentences are served without the possibility of parole.

* * *

Judge Voorhees also sentenced a Mooresville man to 15 years in prison for producing and possessing child pornography, and ordered him to serve a lifetime of supervised release and to register as a sex offender.  According to court documents, evidence presented at trial and statements made in court, James Douglas Brown, 54, had sexually abused a minor female repeatedly between May 2009 and January 2011.  Court records show that Brown filmed and photographed some of the sexual abuse of the minor victim.  In May 2014, a federal jury convicted Brown of eight counts of production and one count of possession of child pornography.  He has been in federal custody since November 2013.  Brown’s case was investigated by the FBI and the Iredell County Sheriff’s Office.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Cortney Randall of the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Charlotte handled the prosecution of both cases.

These cases were 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.