Henderson County Man Guilty of Child Obscenity Violations

TYLER, Texas – The former mayor of Athens, Texas has pleaded guilty to federal child obscenity violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney Brit Featherston today.

James Monte Montgomery, 64, pleaded guilty to sending obscene materials to a minor today before U.S. Magistrate Judge John D. Love.

According to public information, on June 3, 2021, Montgomery was arrested after arriving at an undisclosed location after soliciting sex online with investigators posing as minors.  In June of 2020, Montgomery, then the mayor of Athens, Texas, began communicating by text messaging with a person he believed to be a 15-year-old female.  Montgomery sent messages to the child describing sexually explicit acts that he wanted to perform on the child and offering to pay the child if she would meet him and have sex with him. 

Montgomery faces up to 10 years in federal prison at sentencing.  The maximum statutory sentence prescribed by Congress is provided here for information purposes, as the sentencing will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.  A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the U.S. Probation Office.

This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the 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.justice.gov/psc.

This case is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Tyler Field Office, with assistance from the Texas Department of Public Safety, Collin County Sheriff’s Office, and the Department of Homeland Security-Homeland Security Investigations.  This case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Austin Wells.

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