Georgia Man Indicted on Federal Child Pornography Charges

JACKSONVILLE—United States Attorney Robert E. O’Neill announced today that John Charles Stevenson (45, Rincon, Georgia) has been indicted by a federal grand jury in Jacksonville on child pornography charges. Stevenson is charged with two counts of receiving child pornography over the Internet. He faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years, up to 20 years in prison, and a $250,000 fine.

Stevenson was arrested in Rincon, Georgia, on June 21, 2013, and remains in the custody of the U.S. Marshals Service pending a detention hearing on July 11, 2013, at the U.S. Courthouse in Jacksonville.

According to the indictment, on two separate occasions, Stevenson knowingly received visual depictions of a minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct via the Internet.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation 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 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 (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.justice.gov/psc. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc and click on the tab “Resources.”