Convicted Nassau County Sex Offender Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Possession of Child Pornography

JACKSONVILLE, FL—Senior United States District Judge Harvey E. Schlesinger has sentenced Mickey Wayne Brazzell (58, Yulee) to 10 years in prison for possession of child pornography. Brazzell is also ordered to serve a 10-year term of supervised release following his incarceration. Brazzell pleaded guilty on July 18, 2011.

According to court documents, Brazzell has a prior conviction for a sexual offense against minor children. He was convicted in state court in Jacksonville on November 6, 2000, of lewd and lascivious conduct.

According to court documents, Brazzell was more recently identified as a possible suspect in a child pornography offense by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). NCMEC referred this matter to the Florida Attorney General’s Office in Jacksonville (AGO) for further investigation. In June 2010, two AGO investigators made contact with Brazzell at his apartment in Yulee. Among other things, Brazzell admitted to investigators that he had received several images of boys between 12 and 13 years of age “having sex on each other.” Based upon this and other admissions, investigators seized Brazzell’s laptop computer.

On November 23, 2010, Brazzell was arrested by FBI agents and AGO officers at his residence in Yulee. During an interview, Brazzell told the agents, among other things, that he was given a computer by a friend, shortly after his other computer was seized and that he had pornography on the new computer. Subsequently, agents seized a second desktop computer and other computer media from Brazzell’s residence. These items were found to contain depictions of child pornography.

Approximately 900 images were recovered from Brazzell’s two computers, compact disks, and external thumb drive. At least 191 of the images depicted minor children engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

This case was investigated by the former Child Predator Cybercrime Unit of the Florida Attorney General’s Office and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is being 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 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.justice.gov/psc.