Holdrege Man Sentenced for Possession of Child Pornography

United States Attorney Steven Russell announced that Cory D. Sikes, 41, of Holdrege, Nebraska, was sentenced today in Lincoln, Nebraska, by Senior United States District Judge John M. Gerrard for possession of child pornography. Sikes was sentenced to 138 months in prison and will also serve 10 years on supervised release. There is no parole in the federal system. Sikes was additionally ordered to pay $3,000 which will contribute to funds established for victims of these types of crimes.

This case began when a CyberTipline Report (“CTR”) was provided to the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children from a social media application on October 31, 2021. The CTR specified that eight images and one video depicting child pornography were uploaded by an individual, later identified as Sikes, between the dates of October 28, 2021 and October 29, 2021.

Based on the information from the CTR, a search warrant was received and executed on January 13, 2022, for Sikes’s residence. During the search, Sikes was interviewed and admitted to searching for child pornography online. Several of Sikes’s devices were seized during the execution of the search warrant. The devices were forensically downloaded and examined. Sikes’s personal cellphone contained 120 images of child pornography and another 483 images were questionable and/or child erotica. His laptop contained 350 images of child pornography and another 500 images which were questionable and/or child erotica.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and 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 was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.