Cedar Rapids Woman Who Produced and Distributed Child Pornography Sentenced to 40 Years in Federal Prison

A woman who created child pornography videos and distributed them online was sentenced today to 40 years in federal prison.

Abigail Elizabeth Lambert, age 32, from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, received the prison term after an October 12, 2023 guilty plea to one count of distribution of child pornography and one count of sexual exploitation of children.

At the guilty plea, Lambert admitted that she used, persuaded, induced, or enticed at least one minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing one or more visual depictions of the conduct.  She also admitted that she knowingly distributed visual depictions of child pornography over the internet.  Court documents reflect that, in June 2023, Lambert exchanged messages with an undercover officer over a fetish website.  Lambert told the officer that she had committed sexual acts with two minors and that she had videos of the sexual acts.  On June 29, 2023, Lambert sent the undercover officer some of the videos she had previously described.

Lambert was sentenced in Cedar Rapids by United States District Court Chief Judge C.J. Williams.  Lambert was sentenced to 480 months’ imprisonment.  She must also serve a five-year term of supervised release after the prison term.  There is no parole in the federal system.

Lambert is being held in the United States Marshal’s custody until she can be transported to a federal prison.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Dan Chatham. 

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.”

Court file information at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. 

The case file number is 23‑CR‑00049‑CJW‑MAR.

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