Former U.S. Forest Service Employee Sentenced to 15½ Years in Federal Prison for Receiving Child Pornography, Stepson Sentenced to Four Years for Possession of Child Pornography

JACKSONVILLE, FL—United States Attorney Robert E. O’Neill announces that U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton Jr. yesterday sentenced Derek Alan Lee (44, Orange Park) to 15½ years in prison and a life term of supervised release for receiving images and videos of child pornography over the Internet. Jeffrey Dean McMillan, (21, Orange Park) Lee’s stepson, was sentenced yesterday to four years in federal prison and a 10-year term of supervised release for possession of child pornography. Lee and McMillan were both ordered to forfeit their computer media, and were also ordered to register as sex offenders. Both previously pled guilty.

According to court documents, in November 2010, an investigator with the Florida Attorney General’s Office, Child Predator Cybercrime Unit, began an online undercover investigation to identify individuals using the Internet to share images and videos of child pornography. The investigator identified a particular host computer that was sharing several hundred files depicting child pornography over the Internet. Subpoenaed documents from the Internet service provider revealed that this host computer resolved to the residence of Derek Alan Lee in Orange Park, Florida.

According to court documents, on December 10, 2010, law enforcement officers executed a search warrant at Lee’s residence in Orange Park. After securing the residence, the agents interviewed McMillan. McMillan admitted that he possessed child pornography on his computer, and he indicated that images and videos of child pornography were also located on his stepfather’s (Lee’s) computer. McMillan was placed under arrest. The agents contacted Lee and invited Lee to return to the residence. A short time later, Lee arrived at the residence. When asked what kind of files he had on his computer, Lee responded, “If you have a search warrant, you found that I have child pornography on my computer.” Lee stated that he viewed the images “every couple of weeks,” and that he has been downloading child pornography for 10 years. After the interview, Lee was arrested.

According to court documents, subsequent forensic analysis of the computer media obtained from the residence revealed that both Lee and McMillan possessed hundreds of images and videos of child pornography on their respective computers. Specifically, Lee’s computer contained 111 videos and 116 images depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct, and McMillan possessed 61 videos and 685 images of child pornography.

This case was investigated by the former Child Predator Cybercrime Unit of the Florida Attorney General’s Office, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Office of Inspector General, and the Clay County Sheriff’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 launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the 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 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.projectsafechildhood.gov. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov and click on the tab “other resources.”