Baker County Man Pleads Guilty to Federal Charge of Transportation of Child Pornography

JACKSONVILLE, FL—United States Attorney A. Brian Albritton, along with James Casey, Special Agent in Charge of the Jacksonville Field Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), announced today that Robert Michael Curtiss (age 54, of Baker County) has pleaded guilty to transporting videos of child pornography over the Internet. Curtiss faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 5 years in federal prison and up to 20 years in federal prison.

According to court documents, in early August 2007, an FBI agent with the Phoenix, Arizona Field Office, who was acting in an undercover capacity, entered an Internet Relay Chat channel that had a title referencing "preteen girls". Curtiss engaged the agent in a discussion of a sexual nature and used "Yahoo! Messenger" to send the agent two videos containing child pornography. On March 18, 2008, the FBI executed a federal search warrant at Curtiss's residence and seized a desktop computer. The FBI determined that the computer contained approximately 100 images of child pornography and a video containing child pornography.

T h is case 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 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 Jacksonville Field Office of the FBI. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kevin C. Frein.