ORLANDO, FL—Chief United States District Judge Anne C. Conway yesterday sentenced Aaron Michael Murray (23, Clermont) to 16 years and eight months in federal prison for transporting child pornography over the Internet. He was also ordered to serve a 20-year term of supervision, and to register as a sex offender following his release from prison. Murray pleaded guilty on May 15, 2015.

According to court documents, police officers in Texas executed a search warrant at a residence and discovered child pornography on a computer used by a minor child. Further investigation revealed that the child had received images of child pornography from an individual using a computer located at a residence in Clermont, Florida. The individual, subsequently identified as Murray, had portrayed himself to be a minor child during online conversations with the Texas minor.

A search warrant was executed at Murray’s residence, where his laptop computer and iPod Touch device were seized and analyzed by the FBI. The e-mail account Murray had used to send out the child pornography was located on the iPod. Online chat messages that Murray had sent using the fake persona of a minor child were also recovered, along with at least 250 images and videos depicting child pornography that Murray had obtained using the Internet. Murray’s laptop computer contained at least 73 images and videos depicting child pornography, many of which Murray had organized and sorted into folders. Evidence obtained from his e-mail account showed that Murray had sent at least 246 images of child pornography to other users over the Internet, including many that depicted prepubescent boys engaged in sexual intercourse.

This case was investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Ocala and Jacksonville, the Dallas (Texas) Police Department, and the Carrollton (Texas) Police Department. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

It is another case brought as 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 United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”