Arlington Men Sentenced to Federal Prison on Child Pornography Convictions

FORT WORTH, TX—Two residents of Arlington, Texas, Todd M. Fowler, 47, and Michael Ray Borah, 37, convicted in separate and unrelated cases involving child pornography, were sentenced today in federal court in Fort Worth, Texas, by U.S. District Judge Terry R. Means. Today’s announcement was made by U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas.

Fowler was sentenced to 120 months in federal prison and was ordered to surrender to the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) in January 2013. He pleaded guilty in May 2012 to one count of receipt of child pornography. According to documents filed in his case, Fowler used file sharing software to receive images depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. On May 28, 2011, a search warrant was executed at Fowler’s residence. That same day, Fowler was en route to his home from a trip to Hong Kong, via San Francisco International Airport. At the airport, officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection seized his MacBook computer that he had used to download child pornography. A forensic examination of the MacBook revealed Fowler possessed 43 videos and 354 still images of child pornography on the computer.

Borah, who pleaded guilty to one count of possessing child pornography, was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison. He was also ordered to surrender to the BOP in January 2013. According to documents filed in his case, in August 2011, agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) went to Borah’s home to speak with him about purchasing access to known child pornography websites. Borah admitted that he had purchased subscriptions to these websites and that he possessed child pornography on his computers.

These cases were 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. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better 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.”

The investigations were conducted by the FBI, ICE-HSI, and the Plano Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Aisha Saleem was in charge of the prosecutions.