Clinton County Man To Serve 45 Years In Prison For Child Pornography Offenses

Miguel Angel Vasquez Torres, 34, from Beckemeyer, Illinois, was sentenced on August 2, 2016, in the U.S. District Court to 45 years in prison for Production of Child Pornography, Distribution of Child Pornography and Receipt of Child Pornography, United States Attorney Donald S. Boyce announced today. Vasquez Torres was also ordered to pay a $300 special assessment. When he is released from prison he will be on federal supervised release for an additional 10 years.

Documents filed in the U.S. District Court establish that in May 2015, the Federal Bureau of Investigation received information from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) CyberTipline regarding an individual who was uploading child pornography to a Photobucket.com cloud storage account. A search of the Photobucket account revealed that the account belonged to Miguel Angel Vasquez Torres and that it contained numerous video and image files containing child pornography. During a subsequent search of Vasquez Torres’ residence, law enforcement officers seized two cellular telephones and numerous other items of computer media.

Vasquez Torres was interviewed by law enforcement officers and admitted to downloading and distributing video files containing child pornography. He also admitted that he had repeatedly sexually abused a minor over the course of several years and that he had photographed his acts of sexual abuse of the minor victim. A forensic examination of Vasquez Torres’ iPhone 5 revealed approximately 22 video files containing child pornography that he had distributed and received using an internet-based messaging system. The forensic examination of his Samsung Galaxy revealed approximately 440 images which depict Vasquez Torres’ sexual abuse of the minor victim.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 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."

This investigation was conducted by the Madison County Sheriff’s Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Metro East Cyber Crimes and Analysis Task Force, and the Clinton County Sheriff’s Department. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ali Summers.