Boynton Beach Man Sentenced to 40 Years in Prison for Distribution and Possession of Child Pornography

Jeffrey H. Sloman, Acting United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, and Michael J. Folmar, Acting Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Miami Filed Office, announced today that on Friday, August 14, 2009, the Honorable Kenneth A. Marra sentenced Mark Joseph Harvey, of Boynton Beach, FL, to forty (40) years’ imprisonment, to be followed by lifetime supervised release. On April 24, 2009, Harvey had pled guilty to all three counts of a federal Indictment charging him with distribution and possession of child pornography, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 2252A(a)(2)(A) and 2252A(a)(5)(B). As part of his sentence, Harvey is also required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.

Harvey, a former resident of the Cape Cod, Massachusetts area, was initially arrested on February 4, 2009, on a Criminal Complaint. According to the affidavit filed in support of the Complaint, in November and December 2008, Harvey engaged in the distribution of child pornography with an undercover agent with the FBI’s Innocent Images Unit in Maryland. The undercover agent in Maryland obtained from Harvey more than 200 files containing child pornography.

Additional investigation and surveillance in Boynton Beach resulted in a federal search warrant for Harvey’s home, which was executed on February 4, 2009, by FBI agents and Boynton Beach police officers. During the search, officers found a laptop computer and an external hard drive under Harvey’s bed. Harvey admitted to downloading and distributing child pornography and estimated that he had thousands of images and videos in his child pornography collection. Following Harvey’s arrest, his computer equipment was forensically examined by the Computer Crimes Unit of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, resulting in the identification of more than 250,000 images and videos showing the sexual abuse of young children. Law enforcement estimates that this is the largest collection of child pornography recovered in South Florida.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. 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.projectsafechildhood.gov.

Mr. Sloman commended the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Boynton Beach Police Department, and the Computer Crimes Division of the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office for their joint efforts in this case. This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Ann Marie Villafana.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida at www.usdoj.gov/usao/fls. Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida at www.flsd.uscourts.gov or http://pacer.flsd.uscourts.gov.