Duquesne Resident Sentenced to Three Decades of Prison for Production of Child Sexual Abuse Materials

PITTSBURGH, Pa. - A resident of Duquesne, Pennsylvania, has been sentenced in federal court to 30 years of incarceration on each of three counts, to be served concurrently and then followed by lifetime supervised release, on his conviction of production and attempted production of material depicting the sexual exploitation of a minor, United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan announced today.

United States District Judge W. Scott Hardy imposed the sentence on George Cobbs, 41.

According to information presented to the Court, on multiple occasions, Cobbs attempted to and did use, persuade, induce, entice, and coerce a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of such conduct.

Prior to imposing sentence, Judge Hardy noted that Cobbs had violated the minor victim’s trust for his own gratification and denounced Cobbs’ memorialization of his sexual abuse of the minor as degrading the minor’s personhood.

Assistant United States Attorney Heidi M. Grogan prosecuted this case on behalf of the government.

United States Attorney Olshan commended the FBI Pittsburgh Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Allegheny County Police Department, and Duquesne Police Department, for the investigation leading to the successful prosecution of Cobbs.

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.justice.gov/psc.