Acting United States Attorney Randolph J. Seiler announced that Neal LaPointe, age 31, of Sacramento, California, appeared before U.S. District Judge Roberto A. Lange on September 28, 2015, and pled guilty to an Indictment that charged him with Sexual Exploitation of a Child, and Distribution of Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of Minors. He also pled guilty to a separate Indictment charging him with Failure to Appear.

The maximum penalty upon conviction is up to 60 years in custody and/or a $250,000 fine, life of supervised release, and $300 to the Federal Crime Victims Fund. Restitution may also be ordered.

The charges involving the Sexual Exploitation of a Child and Distribution of Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of Minors stem from incidents between March 1, 2012, and April 30, 2013. During that timeframe, LaPointe was living in California, and under the guise of various aliases and online identities, would use computers, the Internet, and the social networking site Facebook to solicit images of minors engaging in explicit sexual conduct, and would then distribute these images via computer and over the Internet. Some of the minor victims lived on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation and elsewhere in South Dakota.