Repeat Offender Convicted in Minnesota of Possession of Child Pornography

A jury found Frank Russell McCoy, 72, guilty of possession of child pornography after a two-day trial, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger of the District of Minnesota.

For years, McCoy has written and distributed short stories describing extreme sexual abuse and other acts of violence perpetrated against very young children.  In 2013, he was convicted in the Middle District of Georgia of one count of transportation of obscene matters after sending one such story via the Internet to an Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations (ICE-HSI) undercover agent.  On Dec. 17, 2013, while McCoy was on bond pending an appeal of his conviction, a U.S. Probation officer observed large numbers of computers and related equipment in McCoy’s home in Minnesota.  A search of the computer equipment revealed dozens of videos of child exploitation.  Though McCoy had installed forensic wiping software, intended to destroy any evidence of child exploitation images on his computers, the majority of those files had been written onto a portable video player device just before the seizure of the devices.

U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Schiltz of the District of Minnesota presided over the trial.  McCoy is scheduled to be sentenced on April 5, 2016.

ICE-HSI investigated this case.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Katharine T. Buzicky of the District of Minnesota and Trial Attorney Jeffrey Zeeman of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) are prosecuting the case.