Sioux City Man Sentenced to Five Years for Receiving Child Pornography

A man who downloaded child pornography was sentenced August 1, 2013 to five years in federal prison.

Michael Pedersen, age 56, of Sioux City, Iowa, received the sentence after an April 30, 2013, guilty plea to one count of receipt of child pornography. At the guilty plea, Pedersen admitted that he used the Internet to download child pornography.

Pedersen was sentenced in Sioux City by United States District Court Judge Mark W. Bennett. Pedersen was sentenced to 60 months’ imprisonment. A special assessment of $100 was imposed, and Pedersen must also serve a 10-year term of supervised release. He must comply with all sex offender registration and public notification requirements.

This case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation and 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.”

Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is CR 12-4096.