Georgia Man Sentenced to 25 Years in Prison for Production of Child Pornography

WASHINGTON—Andrew Lastinger, 43, of Moultrie, Georgia, was sentenced today to 25 years in prison followed by 50 years of supervised release for production of child pornography, announced Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Michael J. Moore of the Middle District of Georgia.

On May 6, 2010, Lastinger pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge W. Louis Sands to a one-count information charging him with producing child pornography. This investigation was initiated as a result of complaints received by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children regarding a significant number of child pornography images uploaded to a social networking Internet site from an e-mail address registered to Lastinger. FBI special agents executed a search warrant at Lastinger’s residence and seized numerous items of electronic evidence. During the execution of the warrant, Lastinger admitted to uploading the child pornography images as well as to molesting and producing child pornography images of a minor boy, and attempting to produce child pornography of another minor boy. Subsequent forensic examinations of computers and other electronic media seized from Lastinger’s residence confirmed the existence of over 100,000 images of child pornography, child pornography images of the minor boy produced by Lastinger, and of Lastinger attempting to take a sexually explicit video of the other minor boy.

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 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.

The case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Jim Crane of the Middle District of Georgia and Trial Attorney Mi Yung Park of the Criminal Division’s CEOS. The case was investigated by the FBI, the Colquitt County Sheriffs Office Criminal Investigations Divisions, and CEOS’s High Technology Investigative Unit.