Former Police Officer for the Department of Defense Sentenced for Traveling into the District of Columbia to Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct and Enticing a Minor Child

WASHINGTON—Matthew McMullen, 27, a former police officer for the Department of Defense, was sentenced today to 57 months in prison for traveling interstate to engage in illicit sexual conduct and enticing a minor, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr.; James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Cathy L. Lanier, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

McMullen, of California, Md., pled guilty to the charges in April 2011 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was sentenced by the Honorable Gladys Kessler. Upon completion of his prison term, McMullen will be placed on 10 years of supervised release.

According to the government’s evidence, on February 4, 2011, an undercover officer with the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force entered a social network site. The defendant, who at the time was a Department of Defense police officer, contacted the undercover officer and they subsequently began communicating that day by e-mail.

During their conversation, McMullen expressed interest in having sexual contact with an under-aged child. The defendant traveled from Maryland to a pre-arranged meeting place in Washington, D.C. When he arrived at the meeting place, he was arrested.

This case was brought as part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative and investigated by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes members of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and MPD.

Project Safe Childhood is a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen, Assistant Director McJunkin and Chief Lanier praised the MPD detectives and special agents of the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. They also commended Assistant U.S. Attorney Julieanne Himelstein, who prosecuted the case.