Colorado Man Sentenced for Receiving Child Pornography

MINNEAPOLIS—Earlier today in federal court, a 26-year-old Denver, Colorado man, formerly of Plymouth, Minnesota, was sentenced for receiving, via his computer, thousands of images of child pornography. United States District Court Judge Patrick J. Schiltz sentenced Russell Ronald Brimeyer to 85 months in federal prison on one count of receipt of child pornography. Brimeyer was charged on May 7, 2012, and pleaded guilty on June 26, 2012.

In his plea agreement, Brimeyer admitted that on April 15, 2009, he received, by way of his computer, thousands of images of a minor under the age of 12 engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He received the images through an online peer-to-peer file-sharing program. Authorities discovered the images on Brimeyer’s computer and other media devices on September 24, 2009, during the execution of a search warrant at his residence.

This case was the result of an investigation by the Minnesota Cyber Crimes Task Force, which is sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the U.S. Secret Service, and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Clifford B. Wardlaw.

Presently, the Justice Department is funding a study concerning the correlation between involvement in child pornography and the hands-on sexual abuse of children. A 2008 study (The Butner Study) published in the Journal of Family Violence found that up to 80 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for possession, receipt, or distribution of child pornography also admitted to hands-on sexual abuse of children, ranging from touching to rape.

The U.S. Department of Justice is committed to combating the sexual exploitation of children, particularly via the Internet. In fiscal year 2010, 2,235 defendants pleaded guilty to federal child pornography charges, 2,222 of whom were sentenced to prison. In fiscal year 2009, 2,083 defendants were sentenced to prison on child pornography charges. For more information about these efforts, please visit the Department’s Project Safe Childhood website, at www.justice.gov/psc.