San Francisco Man Pleads Guilty to Traveling Into the District of Columbia to Engage in Illicit Sexual Conduct with a Minor and Transportation of Child Pornography

WASHINGTON—Richard Morehead, 49, of San Francisco, Calif., has pled guilty to federal charges of traveling interstate to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor and transportation of child pornography, 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).

Morehead pled guilty on August 26, 2011 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Honorable Robert L. Wilkins is to sentence him on November 21, 2011. Under federal sentencing guidelines, Morehead faces a likely range of 121 to 151 months in prison.

According to the government’s evidence, on February 27, 2011, the defendant contacted an undercover agent with the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, who had entered a social network site. Over the next several days, Morehead engaged in communications with the undercover officer, during which Morehead expressed interest in having sexual contact with an underaged child. The defendant traveled from California to a pre-arranged meeting place in Washington, D.C. When he arrived at the meeting place, he was arrested and found to be in possession of various computer media containing child pornography that he had transported into the District of Columbia.

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 guilty plea, 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 David Last, who is prosecuting the case.