Greenup County Man Sentenced to 45 Years for Production of Child Pornography

ASHLAND, Ky. – An Ashland man, William Lucas Ferguson, 28, was sentenced on Monday, by U.S. District Judge David Bunning, to 45 years in prison, for two counts of producing child pornography.

According to his plea agreement, in June 2022, law enforcement was alerted that Ferguson had sexually explicit images and videos of a minor victim on his phone.  Law enforcement interviewed Ferguson and, during a consensual search of his phone, located multiple images of Ferguson sexually assaulting a minor child. Ferguson admitted that he was the adult in the images and that he had produced the sexually explicit images of the minor victim, on multiple occasions.

Under federal law, Ferguson must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence.  Upon his release from prison, he will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for 20 years.

Carlton S. Shier, IV, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Michael E. Stansbury, Special Agent in Charge, FBI, Louisville Field Office; Col. Phillip J. Burnett, Jr., Commissioner of the Kentucky State Police; and W. Todd Kelley, Chief of the Ashland Police Department, jointly announced the sentence.

The investigation was conducted by FBI, KSP, and the Ashland Police Department.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Roth is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted this case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 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 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.

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