Louisville Man Sentenced to 262 Months in Prison for Violating Child Pornography Laws
Arrested in Budapest After Fleeing from Federal Agents

LOUISVILLE, KY—a former truck driver living in the St. Matthews area of Jefferson County, Kentucky, was sentenced this week in U.S. District court to serve 262 months in prison followed by a lifetime of supervised release by U.S. District Judge Charles R. Simpson, III after pleading guilty to violating federal child pornography laws announced David J. Hale, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.

According to the sentencing memorandum, John Dennis Clark, III used a Yahoo! Flickr account to upload 13,800 images of child pornography from January 2, 2007 to June 17, 2007. Flickr users who discovered the images complained to Yahoo! about the presence of child pornography associated with the “audriusmackevicius” account. Yahoo! submitted 13,800 images as a cybertip report to The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) on August 15, 2008. NCMEC referred the investigation to the FBI. The FBI traced the Internet protocol to an Insight account on Iola Road in Louisville, Kentucky. On January 7, 2009, the FBI executed a search warrant and seized Clark’s laptop computer and several items related to international travel. The Regional Computer Forensic Laboratory (RCFL) conducted a forensic examination of Clark’s laptop and discovered thousands of images of child pornography consisting of mostly prepubescent boys engaged in sexual activity. Seven days later, Clark fled the United States from Chicago to Warsaw, Poland. On or about February 27, 2009, during a check of international border crossing records, law enforcement discovered that Clark had fled the United States for Eastern Europe in a failed attempt to avoid prosecution.

While Clark’s whereabouts were unknown to federal agents, he logged onto the SEB Bank website, and requested a new ATM card. On July 9, 2009, Interpol issued an Interpol Red Notice and a provisional international arrest warrant for Clark. America’s Most Wanted also aired a special on Clark leaving after execution of the search warrant. On April 9, 2010, Budapest law enforcement learned that Clark was working as an English language teacher at the Shetland Language School in Budapest, Hungary. While employed at the school, Clark received payments in cash and convinced an employee to receive packages on his behalf. Law enforcement contacted the Shetland Language School and learned that Clark was to teach English to children at another school at 5:00 p.m. At approximately 4:50, an employee of the Shetland Language School contacted the Hungarian National Police and informed them that Clark was informed of the police visit to the Shetland School. Clark fled and on April 13, 2010, was arrested at an Internet café in Budapest, Hungary by the Hungarian National Police. Clark waived Extradition to the United States, but filed an asylum claim the day he was to return to the United States. His asylum claim was ultimately denied and he returned to Louisville on November 12, 2010. Clark pled guilty to distributing, receiving, and possessing child pornography on January 31, 2012.

At sentencing, in U.S. District Court, on October 22, 2012, Clark’s prison sentence was enhanced for an established pattern of sexual abuse activity for molesting a child in 1976 and for possession of sadomasochistic photos involving pre-pubescent minors.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Joshua Judd and was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

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.”