Mother Sentenced to 25 Years for Producing, Transporting, and Possessing Child Pornography

FORT MYERS, FL—United States Attorney Robert E. O’Neill announces that Candice Marie Miller (31, Alva) was sentenced yesterday to 25 years in federal prison for one count of possession of child pornography, two counts of transporting child pornography, and two counts of producing child pornography. Miller pled guilty to the charges on July 7, 2011.

According to court documents, Miller knowingly produced images of her two minor children engaging in sexually explicit conduct and sent approximately 100 of these pornographic images over the Internet to a man whom she met in an Internet chat room. Miller possessed in excess of 500 images of child pornography.

This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations, with assistance from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Innocent Images Task Force and the Lee County Sheriff’s Office. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Yolande G. Viacava.

It is another case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the 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 locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. For more information about Internet safety education, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov and click on the tab “other resources.”