District Man Pleads Guilty to Distribution of Child Pornography

            WASHINGTON – Thomas Moir, 37, of Washington, D.C., pled guilty to distribution of child pornography stemming from his actions sharing child pornography with users on a social networking site from October 2018 –January 2019, announced U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu.

            Moir pled guilty today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to one count of distribution of child pornography. He will be sentenced on October 1, 2019, by the Honorable    John D. Bates. Moir faces a mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of five years. Following release, he will also be required to register as a sex offender.

            Moir was chief of staff for the D.C. Mayor’s Office of Legal Counsel at the time of the offense, though there is no evidence that he used Government property to commit the offense or that his role had anything to do with the offense.

            According to the Government’s evidence, beginning on or about October 10, 2018, Moir uploaded multiple images depicting child pornography to a social networking site in order to share and discuss these images with other users. He used multiple accounts to upload and share child pornography and did so on multiple occasions from October 2018 to January 2019. Images that Moir uploaded from at least one account were flagged as child pornography by the social networking site and sent to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children for review. These images were then sent to the FBI, which traced them back to devices used by Moir.

            In announcing the plea, U.S. Attorney Liu commended the work of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and members of the FBI-MPDC Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force who investigated the case. She acknowledged the efforts of those who worked on the case from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, including Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrea Hertzfeld and Nicholas Miranda; Paralegal Specialists Tiffany Jones and Leah Welch; and Victim/Witness Advocate Yvonne Bryant. She also thanked the Mayor’s Office for its assistance throughout the investigation.