The United States Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Pennsylvania announced that a 47-year-old Kidder Township man pleaded guilty today before Senior U.S. District Court Judge Edwin M. Kosik to producing child pornography.

According to United States Attorney Peter Smith, the defendant, Todd Kowar, admitted to persuading and inducing a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing images of such conduct. Kowar committed the crime between 2008 and December 2012.

The case against Kowar resulted from an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Pennsylvania State Police, and Kidder Township Police. Kowar was indicted by a federal grand jury in July 2014.

Judge Kosik ordered a pre-sentence report to be completed. Sentencing will be scheduled at a later date. Kowar is detained in prison pending sentencing.

Kowar faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years in prison and a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.

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.”

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis P. Sempa.