Casselberry Man Sentenced to More Than 12 Years for Receiving Child Pornography

ORLANDO—U.S. District Judge Roy B. Dalton, Jr. today sentenced Hal Chris Billerbeck (51, Casselberry) to 12 ½ years in federal prison for receipt of child pornography. The court also ordered Billerbeck to forfeit the electronic storage devices that he used to receive and possess the child pornography. As part of Billerbeck’s sentence, the court ordered him to serve a 10-year term of supervised release, following his release from prison, and to register as a sex offender. Billerbeck pleaded guilty on November 2, 2012.

According to court documents, FBI agents executed a search warrant at Billerbeck’s home and found 99 pictures and 224 videos depicting child pornography. The majority of the photos and videos depicted the sexual abuse of girls between the ages of 3 and 11 years old. Billerbeck told agents that he had been downloading child pornography for the past 12 years. He also admitted that a state search warrant for child pornography was executed at his home in 2007. He said that the child pornography the state investigators located on the computers during the search belonged to him. In addition to receiving and viewing child pornography in his home, Billerbeck said that he also took the images he stored on a computer disk to his place of employment and viewed the child pornography on his work-issued laptop while at work.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Karen L. Gable.

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.”