District Man Sentenced to Nine Years in Prison for Distribution of Child Pornography

Search of Defendant’s Residence Yielded Hundreds of Images of Child Pornography

WASHINGTON—Richard Evans, 25, of Washington, D.C., was sentenced today to nine years in prison on a federal charge of distributing child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr.; 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).

Evans pled guilty to the charge in March 2012 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. He was sentenced by the Honorable Gladys Kessler. Following completion of his prison term, Evans will be placed on 10 years of supervised release, with numerous conditions. Among other things, Evans must restrict his use of the Internet, undergo sex offender treatment, register as a sex offender for 25 years, and refrain from contact with children.

According to a factual proffer of evidence presented during the court proceedings, on November 15, 2011, Evans contacted an undercover agent with the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force on a social network site. Over the next two weeks, the defendant engaged in multiple online conversations with the undercover officer, during which he expressed an interest in meeting an underaged girl and engaging in sexual contact with her. Evans also sent the undercover officer multiple images of child pornography and acknowledged that he actively traded child pornography with other individuals online. In the course of the online communications, Evans further expressed interest in watching the undercover performing sexual acts with the under-aged girl via web camera over the Internet and in having the undercover send him a video of the underaged girl engaged in sexual acts.

Law enforcement obtained an arrest warrant for Evans and a search warrant for his residence in Washington, D.C. On November 30, 2011, Evans was arrested. A forensic analysis of computer equipment inside Evans’ residence confirmed that he possessed approximately 560 images and 102 videos of child pornography, which were organized into various subfolders according to the category of sexual genre, fetish, and/or sexual acts.

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. In February 2006, the Attorney General created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, 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 identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Machen, Assistant Director in Charge McJunkin, and Chief Lanier praised the MPD detectives and special agents of the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. They also acknowledged the efforts of Assistant U.S. Attorney Diane Lucas of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section. Finally, they commended Assistant U.S. Attorney David Last, who prosecuted the case.