Rock Rapids Man Pleads Guilty to Distributing Child Pornography and Destroying Evidence

A man who distributed child pornography and destroyed evidence pled guilty on February 14, 2013, in federal court in Sioux City.

Lennon Slade, age 27, from Rock Rapids, Iowa, was convicted of one count of distribution of child pornography and one count of destruction of evidence.

At the plea hearing, Slade admitted that, between July 2011 and September 2011, he distributed child pornography. In a plea agreement, he admitted that, when officers were attempting to execute a search warrant at his house, he was inside the house destroying evidence.

Sentencing before United States District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett will be set after a presentence report is prepared. Slade was taken into custody by the United States Marshals Service after the guilty plea and will remain in custody pending sentencing. Slade faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of 40 years’ imprisonment, $500,000 in fines, $200 in special assessments, and supervised release for five years to life following his imprisonment.

This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Lyon County Sheriff’s Office.

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.”

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 12-4080.