Smith County Man Sentenced to 20 Years for Child Pornography Violations

TYLER, TX—A 44-year-old Tyler, Texas man has been sentenced to federal prison for child pornography violations in the Eastern District of Texas, announced U.S. Attorney John M. Bales today.

Thomas Alvin Boyd pleaded guilty on Mar. 8, 2011, to distributing child pornography and was sentenced to 240 months in federal prison today by U.S. District Judge Leonard E. Davis.

According to information presented in court, on Mar. 29, 2010, law enforcement agents executed a federal search warrant at Boyd’s residence and seized several computers, USB drives, CDs, DVDs, and other forms of digital media. A forensic examination of the seized items was conducted and found to contain several thousand images of child pornography and, at a minimum, 250 videos of child pornography. Boyd was aware that the settings on the peer-to-peer software allowed certain other users to download child pornography from him and acknowledges that the illegal images were distributed in that they were accessed and downloaded by others. Some of the images depicted prepubescent minors under the age of 12 engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and some of the images are considered sadistic or masochistic. Boyd was indicted by a federal grand jury on May 6, 2010, and charged with child pornography violations.

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 United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s 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.projectsafechildhood.gov.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher T. Tortorice.