District Man Convicted of Receipt of Child Pornography

Arranged to Have Photos Taken and Mailed of Child in Guatemala

WASHINGTON—Byron Sanchez, 29, of Washington, D.C., has pled guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of receipt of child pornography.

The guilty plea, which took place April 27, 2011, was announced by U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen Jr., Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division, 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).

Sanchez pled guilty before the Honorable Robert L. Wilkins. Sentencing is scheduled for July 12, 2011. The defendant faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years of incarceration, a maximum sentence of 20 years, and a fine of up to $250,000.

According to a proffer of evidence presented during the plea proceedings, in February of 2011, the defendant, a Guatemalan national, instructed an adult female in Guatemala to take sexually explicit photographs of a 12-year-old child. He further instructed the adult to mail the roll of film to him at his home in Washington, D.C.

The adult female photographed the child, and sent the roll of film to the defendant from Guatemala to Washington, D.C. Sanchez dropped off the film at a CVS store in Washington, D.C. to be processed. Store employees at the store called the MPD to report possible images of child pornography, and an investigation led to the defendant’s arrest.

During a search of the defendant’s apartment, police found additional sexually explicit photographs of the same girl when she was 10 years old. Further investigation revealed that the defendant had requested nude images of the adult woman and the child on several occasions.

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 plea, U.S. Attorney Machen, Assistant Attorney General Breuer, Assistant Director McJunkin and Chief Lanier commended the work of all who participated in the investigation. They especially acknowledged the efforts of the MPD Detectives and Special Agents of the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force and the Transnational Anti-Gang Unit posted in Central America. Finally, they thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney Julieanne Himelstein, and Anitha Ibrahim, Trial Attorney in the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, who are prosecuting the case.