Forsyth County Man Sentenced to 13-1/2 Years In Prison For Distributing Child Pornography

GREENSBORO, N.C. – A Forsyth County man who pleaded guilty to possession of child pornography was sentenced to 13-1/2 years in prison today, announced Matthew G.T. Martin, United States Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina.

KIP LANDON KALE, 38, of Lewisville, North Carolina, pleaded guilty on March 4, 2019, to one count of distribution of child pornography. He was sentenced today by United States District Judge N. Carlton Tilley, Jr. to 162 months of imprisonment followed by 25 years of supervised release. He was ordered to pay $5,000.00 in restitution to a victim depicted in a video he distributed.

In 2018, KALE was convicted of Possession of Obscenity with Intent to Disseminate in Davidson County and placed on probation. On January 1, 2019, a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Online Covert Employee (OCE) began communicating with “rockslyde007,” later identified as KALE, using a mobile messaging application. The OCE saw that rockslyde007 belonged to a group using that application known to be associated with trafficking child pornography, and engaged rockslyde007 in an online chat. User rockslyde007 sent the OCE two child pornography videos involving prepubescent minors and a hyperlink to a cloud storage account containing 56 additional child pornography videos. During the chat with the OCE, which continued until January 4, 2019, rockslyde007 claimed to have sexually exploited two minors under the age of ten.

On January 4, 2019, the FBI’s investigation traced IP addresses used by rockslyde007 to KALE’s residence and his place of employment. FBI agents responded to KALE’s residence the same day and, after confirming his phone matched the one used by rockslyde007, placed him under arrest.

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Eric L. Iverson, and brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative by the Department of Justice to combat online child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by 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 better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

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