Man Sentenced to 70 Months in Prison for Possessing Child Pornography
| U.S. Attorney’s Office November 04, 2013 |
David K. Hechler, 28, of Chicago, Illinois, was sentenced Friday, November 1, 2013, in federal court to 70 months in prison for possession of child pornography, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today. Following his prison sentence, Hechler will be on federal supervised release for 10 years and will also be required to register as a sex offender for the remainder of his life.
Court documents establish that in September 2007, during an undercover investigation conducted by the FBI Innocent Images Unit, agents identified a computer located in the Southern District of Illinois that had been used to attempt to purchase child pornography from the undercover Internet website. Further investigation revealed that the computer and IP address used belonged to Hechler, who was a student at Greenville College at the time. During an interview with law enforcement, Hechler admitted to downloading and viewing image and video files containing child pornography on his computer. A forensic examination of Hechler’s computers revealed 262 image files and three video files containing child pornography.
This case is part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 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 investigation was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Metro East Cyber Crimes and Analysis Task Force. The case was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Ali Summers.