JACKSONVILLE, FL—United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III announced today that a federal jury in Jacksonville today found William Roland Baker (64, Jacksonville) guilty of two counts of possessing child pornography. He faces a mandatory minimum penalty of 10 years, up to 20 years, in federal prison on each count, and a potential life term of supervision. Baker is a registered child sex offender who was previously convicted of lewd and lascivious conduct with a child on November 22, 1995. He has been in custody since his arrest on November 4, 2013 in Jacksonville, and had previously worked as a civil traffic engineer.

According to testimony and evidence introduced during the trial, in early 2013, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement was able to download several images and a video of child pornography over the Internet from a computer using an Internet Protocol address that was traced back to Baker’s Jacksonville residence. On May 29, 2013, a federal search warrant was executed at this residence, where law enforcement seized two laptop computers from Baker’s bedroom. A forensic examiner was able to recover images of child pornography from Baker’s computers, even though Baker had used an eraser program on the evening before the search. During an interview, Baker claimed that he did not download child pornography. However, the forensic analysis of his laptop computer showed that he had used particular terms to search for child pornography in a file sharing program. Baker’s computers contained a total of 338 images depicting the sexual abuse of young children.

This case was investigated by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

It is another case 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, 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.”