District Man Pleads Guilty to Producing Child Pornography and Traveling with Intent to Commit Child Sexual Abuse

WASHINGTON D.C.—Tanner Stickney, 29, of the District of Columbia, pled guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to charges of Sexual Exploitation of a Minor and Traveling with the Intent to Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct, announced Acting U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips. Sentencing has been scheduled for December 18, 2009, before the Honorable Henry H. Kennedy, Jr. The plea agreement provides for a sentence of 15 years' imprisonment, pending Court approval.

According to the Statement of the Offense filed in conjunction with the plea agreement, Stickney admitted to videotaping his sexual molestation of a 4-year old child in Orlando, Florida, in June of 2008. The video was found in Stickney’s Northwest D.C. home pursuant to a federal search warrant on May 15, 2009. Stickney also admitted to traveling from the District of Columbia to Orlando, Florida, on May 15, 2009, intending to again sexually abuse a prepubescent child. Stickney was arrested on May 15, 2009, at Florida International Airport after Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents followed him there from the District of Columbia. At the time of his arrest, he was found in possession of a laptop computer and electronic storage devices which contained child pornography.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood and the FBI/MLD Child Exploitation Task Force. In February 2006, The Attorney General created project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, 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 identify and rescue victims. For more information about project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

In announcing the guilty plea, Acting U.S. Attorney Phillips commended the outstanding efforts of the FBI Washington Field Office’s Crimes Against Children Task Force and Washington Metropolitan Police Department Detective Timothy Palchak. He also praised the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Keith A. Becker, who is prosecuting the case.