Metairie Man Sentenced for Receiving Images and Videos Depicting the Sexual Victimization of Children

U.S. Attorney Kenneth A. Polite announced that ANDREW HUTCHINSON, age, 25, of New Orleans, was sentenced today after previously pleading guilty to crimes involving the sexual exploitation of children.  Specifically, HUTCHINSON pleaded guilty to receiving and attempting to receive sexually explicit images of children.

U.S. District judge Ivan L.R. Lemelle sentenced HUTCHINSON to 60 months imprisonment, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release.  Additionally, HUTCHINSON is required to register as a sex offender pursuant to the Sex Offender Registration Notification Act.  HUTCHINSON was also ordered to pay $12,000 in restitution ($2,000 to victims in each of the six series that requested restitution).

According to court documents, HUTCHINSON used a mobile cellular phone chat application to converse with a twelve-year-old boy in Seattle, Washington, between July 24, 2014, and July 27, 2014.  HUTCHINSON and the boy exchanged approximately 113 chat messages.  Knowing that the boy was only twelve, HUTCHINSON requested and received approximately fifteen sexually explicit images of the boy via the messaging application.  In exchange, HUTCHINSON provided the boy with sexually explicit images of minor females as young as approximately five years old.  HUTCHINSON also provided the boy with a link to an online cloud storage account that contained approximately 1766 images and 19 videos depicting minor females as young as approximately eighteen months old being forced to engage in sexually explicit conduct.  

This case was 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 the 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.”

U.S. Attorney Polite praised the work of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in investigating this matter.  Assistant United States Attorney Jordan Ginsberg was in charge of the prosecution.