Seeley Lake man sentenced to more than eight years in prison for receiving child pornography

MISSOULA  — A Seeley Lake man who admitted to receiving child pornography after joining a Facebook group was sentenced  on Nov. 7 to eight years and six months in prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release, U.S. Attorney Jesse Laslovich said today.

Charles Lief Isaacson, 62, pleaded guilty in June to receipt of child pornography.

U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy presided.

The government alleged in court documents that in September 2022, Isaacson began communicating on Facebook with a profile he believed belonged to a child under the age of 14. Those communications eventually resulted in Isaacson’s arrest on Oct. 25, 2022, after he arrived at a location in Missoula County to meet the child. An investigation determined that in December 2021, Isaacson joined a Facebook group, called “Sweet Kids,” and was able to receive videos and images of minors involved in sexually explicit conduct. Isaacson also solicited one of the group’s members to send him child pornography outside of the group chat in a manner that would help them avoid detection by law enforcement.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian C. Lowney prosecuted the case. The Missoula County Sheriff’s Office and FBI’s Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force conducted the investigation.

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 U.S. Attorney’s Offices and the 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.justice.gov/psc.

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