James Henry Peavy Sentenced in U.S. District Court
| U.S. Attorney’s Office September 01, 2011 |
The United States Attorney’s Office announced that during a federal court session in Billings on September 1, 2011, before Chief U.S. District Judge Richard F. Cebull, JAMES HENRY PEAVY, a 62-year-old resident of Livingston, appeared for sentencing. PEAVY was sentenced to a term of:
- Prison: 63 months
- Special Assessment: $100
- Supervised Release: 15 years
PEAVY was sentenced in connection with his guilty plea to possession of child pornography.
In an offer of proof filed by Assistant U.S. Attorney Marcia K. Hurd, the government stated it would have proved at trial the following:
In May of 2009, law enforcement officers received a Cybertip from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children with concerns about a MySpace page of a young girl. The officers traced the page back to PEAVY of Livingston, and they questioned him in September 2009. PEAVY admitted that he had posted the fake Myspace page pretending to be a young girl looking for sex with older men. A consent search of his computer was attempted, but the software did not operate properly. PEAVY agreed that the officers could take his computer into the lab, image it, and search for child pornography images. They did so, returning the computer to PEAVY in the meantime.
A forensic examination revealed numerous items of child pornography that PEAVY had received via the Internet and saved. Agents went back to PEAVY’s residence with a search warrant, and seized his computer in March 2010. Forensic examination once again revealed that PEAVY had continued accessing and saving child pornography via the Internet. When questioned, PEAVY first claimed he was attempting his own undercover investigation, but when confronted about his failure to contact law enforcement, he admitted that he looked at the images for sexual gratification. PEAVY admitted that he used the Internet to receive and possess child pornography videos and images. PEAVY possessed images and movies of children clearly prepubescent and children engaged in sadistic or masochistic abuse or other depictions of violence.
Because there is no parole in the federal system, the “truth in sentencing” guidelines mandate that PEAVY will likely serve all of the time imposed by the court. In the federal system, PEAVY does have the opportunity to earn a sentence reduction for “good behavior.” However, this reduction will not exceed 15 percent of the overall sentence.
The investigation was a cooperative effort between the Gallatin County Sheriff’s Office, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations, the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Regional Computer Forensic Lab (RCFL), and the Montana Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force.