Grand Prairie Man Sentenced to 210 Months in Federal Prison for Transporting and Shipping Child Pornography

DALLAS—Richard Warner, 45, was sentenced this afternoon by U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis to 210 months in federal prison and a 10-year term of supervised release, following his guilty plea to one count of transporting and shipping child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Sarah R. Saldaña of the Northern District of Texas. Warner has been in federal custody since he entered that guilty plea on August 31, 2011.

According to documents filed in the case, Warner admits that in 2008 he was involved in trading images of child pornography over the Internet. He further admits that on January 11, 2011, when FBI special agents knocked on the door of his Grand Prairie, Texas residence, he agreed to speak to them about his activities involving child pornography on his computer. He acknowledged that he first became interested in child pornography in 2004-2005, he preferred thin, preteen boys engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and some of his child pornography images and videos also contained bondage and bestiality.

Warner allowed his computer and hard drive to be searched and indicated that in addition to numerous images and videos of child pornography, the FBI would also find stories he had written describing sadistic sexual escapades between an adult male and a minor boy. A forensic analysis conducted by the North Texas Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory on Warner’s computer and external hard drive revealed several thousand images and videos of child pornography in addition to sexual and sadistic stories about an adult male and a 10-year-old boy.

This matter 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. 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 case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Camille Sparks.