Lackawanna County Man Charged with Receiving and Distributing Child Pornography
| U.S. Attorney’s Office December 21, 2011 |
The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that a 28-year-old Olyphant resident was indicted by a federal grand jury yesterday for receiving and distributing child pornography.
According to United States Attorney Peter J. Smith, the grand jury alleges that Jonathan Allen used a computer to download and distribute images of child pornography between 2010 and October 14, 2011.
The charge against Allen resulted from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pennsylvania State Police, the Lackawanna County District Attorney’s Office and Olyphant Police.
U.S. Attorney Smith noted that if Allen is convicted of the charge, he faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and a possible maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine, at least five years up to a life term of supervised release, and a $100 special assessment.
U.S. Attorney Smith noted that 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.
U.S. Attorney Smith noted that the case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa.
An indictment and criminal information is not evidence of guilt but simply a description of the charge made by the United States Attorney against a defendant. A charged defendant is presumed innocent until a jury returns a unanimous finding that the United States has proved the defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.