Roy Walsh Sentenced to 200 Months in Prison for Transporting Child Pornography in Interstate Commerce by Means of a Computer

CHATTANOOGA, TN—-Roy Walsh, 39, formerly of Jasper, Tenn., now residing in Lenoir City, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court, Chattanooga, by the Honorable Harry S. Mattrice, Jr., to serve 200 months in prison and pay $3 million in restitution to two victims. Additionally, Walsh will serve 15 years' supervised release upon his release from prison. Today's sentence was the result of a guilty plea entered by Walsh on April 5, 2010.

In February 2008, prosecution of an individual in Connecticut disclosed that the defendant, Roy Walsh, had been sending and receiving images of child pornography over the Internet. Roy Walsh is the former band director for the South Pittsburg High School Band. Chat logs involving Roy Walsh and images sent and received by him were recovered in the investigation. Among the images of child pornography recovered in forensic analysis of a seized computer was that charged in the information, which was sent in interstate commerce on February 19, 2008, from Roy Walsh in the Eastern District of Tennessee, to the individual in Connecticut via computer. A search warrant was executed at Walsh's residence in Jasper, Tennessee, on October 10, 2008, and two computer hard drives were seized and forensically examined. The seized items were found to contain numerous images of child pornography.

The indictment and subsequent guilty plea was the result of an investigation conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, assisted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Tennessee Highway Patrol, Criminal Investigative Division. Assistant U.S. Attorney John MacCoon represented the United States.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, 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 United States 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 via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit projectsafechildhood.gov.