Baker County Man Sentenced to Five Years in Federal Prison for Receiving Child Pornography and Ordered to Pay the Costs of His Incarceration

JACKSONVILLE, FL—U.S. District Judge Henry Lee Adams, Jr. today sentenced John Douglas Baldwin (age 48, of Macclenny, Florida) to five years in federal prison and 15 of supervised release for receiving child pornography over the Internet. The Court also ordered Baldwin to pay the costs of his own incarceration, up to $3,000 per month, for the entire term of his sentence. Baldwin had pled guilty on January 13, 2009.

According to court documents, in 2007, FBI agents initiated an international child pornography investigation after conducting a forensic analysis of a computer seized in Louisiana. The information retrieved from this computer revealed records of a commercial website that offered paid access to images and videos of child pornography to users over the Internet. After providing credit card account numbers, users would be granted access to the website and charged a fee for viewing and downloading child pornography. Information from the illegal website revealed that on 19 different occasions from October 24, 2007 through October 31, 2007, Baldwin attempted to access and retrieve images of child pornography through his computer. In addition, in late 2007 and into 2008, Baldwin accessed and downloaded other images of child pornography over the Internet.

According to court documents, on August 28, 2008, law enforcement officers went to Baldwin’s residence and interviewed him. Baldwin advised that he had two laptop computers in his residence and that he had owned the computers for two or three years. Baldwin stated that he had a long standing problem with child pornography and that images of child pornography would be found on both of his computers. Baldwin stated that he had used specific search terms to seek illicit images of children, and admitted paying for membership to “one or two” websites offering child pornography. Baldwin advised that he had saved images of child pornography on his computers.

Subsequent forensic analysis of one of Baldwin’s computers revealed that it contained at least 148 images of child pornography. The forensic analysis of another of Baldwin’s computers revealed numerous cartoon depictions of sexual intercourse between and among children and between children and adults. Baldwin admitted that he downloaded, received and possessed these images of child pornography for his personal sexual gratification.

The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Child Predator CyberCrime Unit of the State of Florida Attorney General’s Office. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

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.

Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum's Child Predator CyberCrime Unit is a member of the FBI Cyber Taskforce in Jacksonville and the North Florida Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force, a federally funded program working nationwide to educate and support law enforcement efforts to stop these crimes.