Dallas-area man sentenced to 20 years following child pornography guilty plea

DALLAS - A local-area man was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Sam A. Lindsay to 20 years in federal prison, following his guilty plea in September 2010 to three counts of receiving child pornography. The sentence was announced by U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas. The case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

In addition, Judge Lindsay ordered that Brian Keith Warren, 48, of Mesquite, Texas, register as a sex offender and serve a lifetime of supervised release following his imprisonment. Warren has been in custody since his arrest in August 2010 on related charges outlined in a federal criminal complaint.

According to documents filed in the case, on Aug. 4, 2010, ICE HSI agents executed a search warrant at Warren's home and seized several computers and multiple hard drives. A forensic examination of one of the hard drives recovered from Warren's closet revealed at least four video files containing child pornography. Warren admitted to downloading the child pornography using a commonly available peer-to-peer software file-sharing program.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason D. Schall, Northern District of Texas, prosecuted this case.

This investigation was part of Operation Predator, a nationwide ICE initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers.

ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE. This hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators.

Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at 1-800-843-5678 or http://www.cybertipline.com.