Child Sex Tourist Sentenced to 15 Years in Federal Prison for Child Pornography and Child Exploitation Crimes

Spokane – William D. Hyslop, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington, announced that Dennis Michael Hogan, age 60, of Deer Park, Washington, was sentenced today to a 15-year term of imprisonment for Online Enticement of a Minor Girl to Engage in Production of Child Pornography and Attempted Illicit Sexual Conduct in Foreign Places. Following Hogan’s guilty plea on February 18, 2020, United States District Judge Rosanna Malouf Peterson sentenced him at the top of the proposed range, to be followed by a lifetime of court supervision after he is released from federal prison.

According to information disclosed during court proceedings, Hogan repeatedly used social media accounts and the Internet to reach out to minor girls in the Philippines. His minor victims ranged in age from 12 to 17, and each victim told Hogan how old she was. Hogan offered his victims as little as $19 for extremely graphic sexual images that the girls took of themselves and one another to send to him. Hogan also sent child pornography to his minor victims to groom them and show them the kinds of images he liked.

As Judge Peterson noted, Hogan’s conduct far exceeded producing and collecting child pornography. The Court found that in addition to the online recruitment of minor victims, Hogan repeatedly traveled to the Philippines and engaged in illicit sexual conduct with his minor victims. He made painstakingly detailed arrangements of date, time, hotel, city, and how to avoid having his victims’ identifications checked by the hotels to verify their ages. Seven minor victims were identified in the case, but based on Hogan’s online communications, there may have been many more.

Federal child exploitation investigators from Homeland Security Investigations (“HSI”) learned about Hogan’s conduct through the CyberTip Program, when Facebook alerted law enforcement to the transfer of Hogan’s child pornography images. HSI executed a federal search warrant at Hogan’s home in Deer Park and seized numerous devices and communications.

But even after HSI raided his home, Hogan continued to engage in sexual communications with at least one minor female in the Philippines. HSI agents learned that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) in Minnesota had identified Hogan as a target in a completely independent investigation into sexual abuse of minor Filipina girls. HSI and FBI worked closely to coordinate the parallel investigations. From the evidence in the separate FBI case, HSI investigators learned that one of Hogan’s victims even sent him an image of her birth certificate to prove that she was a minor. HSI agents also saw that after the raid, Hogan specifically instructed his minor victim to engage in live sex chats online, because Facebook had informed law enforcement when he previously received images and videos of child pornography.

United States Attorney Hyslop said, “It is a priority of the United States Attorney’s Office to protect all children, not just American kids or those who live in Eastern Washington. The Internet has largely erased state, national, and international boundaries when it comes to adults who seek out children for sex. If predators in the Eastern District use the Internet to abuse children anywhere, they should know that federal agents are actively looking for them. We are deeply committed to investigating, prosecuting, and stopping child sexual abuse, including child sex tourism, to the fullest extent possible. The lengthy sentence imposed today sends a strong message that this conduct will not be tolerated, wherever the victims happen to live. I commend the outstanding investigative efforts by the Spokane Office of HSI, and the unwavering support and resources of the FBI, the Philippine National Police, the United States Embassy in Manila, and the United States Consulate in Cebu City. This was truly a global case that brought together the best of American investigatory resources and relied on national and international cooperation to protect children.”

“Today’s sentencing of Dennis Hogan makes it very clear, we will not tolerate child exploitation and those who perpetrate crimes against children,” Acting Special Agent in Charge of Homeland Security Investigations Seattle Eben Roberts said. “We work with our local, national and international partners to investigate and prosecute these crimes by using every available resource to pursue the guilty and protect the innocent.”

This case was pursued as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the United States 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 information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “resources.”

This case was investigated by the Spokane Office of HSI, and Special Agents Rodney Weekes (Ret.) and Shannon Hart in cooperation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This case was prosecuted by David M. Herzog, an Assistant United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Washington.