San Francisco Founder of Arts Non-Profit Sentenced to 72 Months in Prison for Possession of Child Pornography

Anthony Josef Norris, Founder and Former CEO of Kid Serve, was Identified After He Posted Child Pornography Videos to an Online Bulletin Board

SAN FRANCISCO—Anthony Josef Norris was sentenced yesterday to six years in prison for possessing child pornography videos and images, United States Attorney Melinda Haag announced.

Norris, 46, of San Francisco, pleaded guilty on November 18, 2011 to a one-count information charging him with possession of child pornography, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 2252(a)(4)(B). According to the plea agreement, Norris admitted that on April 26, 2011, he possessed more than 600 images of children engaged in sex acts with adults, including images of prepubescent children being subjected to painful sexual assaults. Norris waived indictment by the grand jury.

Norris is the founder and former CEO of Kid Serve, a San Francisco-based non-profit organization that involved kindergarten through high school-aged children in the creation of public murals, some of which decorated public schools throughout the city. Norris came to the attention of the FBI when an FBI agent who was acting in an undercover capacity discovered that he had posted child pornography videos to a Usenet newsgroup commonly used by traders in child pornography under the screen name “Spanky.” The posting was traced to Norris’ address, where a computer was found containing more than 7,000 images of possible child pornography. Norris admitted that the computer belonged to him.

The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Richard Seeborg, who also sentenced the defendant to a five-year period of supervised release and ordered him to pay $6,500 in restitution, which is to be divided among the child pornography victims identified in his collection. The defendant was ordered to surrender to begin serving his sentence on May 8, 2012.

Owen Martikan is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case with the assistance of Rosario Calderon. The prosecution is the result of an 11-month investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Further Information:

Case #: CR 11-0852 RS

A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.

Electronic court filings and further procedural and docket information are available at https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.

Judges’ calendars with schedules for upcoming court hearings can be viewed on the court’s website at www.cand.uscourts.gov.

All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Jack Gillund at 415-436-6599 or by e-mail at Jack.Gillund@usdoj.gov.