Canadian Man Indicted on Federal Child Pornography Charges in Jacksonville

JACKSONVILLE, FL—United States Attorney Robert E. O’Neill announces that Christian Yvon Lapierre (46, a Canadian citizen residing in Jacksonville) was indicted by a federal grand jury yesterday on child pornography charges. Lapierre is charged with two counts of receiving child pornography and one count of possession of child pornography. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years and up to 20 years in federal prison for each of the receipt counts and up to 10 years in federal prison for the possession count. Lapierre was arrested yesterday at his Jacksonville residence. His arraignment and detention hearing is scheduled for April 17, 2012 at 3:00 p.m. before U.S. Magistrate Judge Joel B. Toomey.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the former Child Predator Cybercrime Unit of the Florida Attorney General’s Office, the Naval Criminal Investigative Service, the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office, and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law, and every defendant is presumed innocent until, and unless, proven guilty.

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, 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.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab “Resources.”