Fort Worth man arrested and detained on federal child pornography charge

FORT WORTH, Texas — A detention/probable cause hearing was held on Monday for a local man who was arrested on a federal criminal complaint charging possession of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey L. Cureton ordered Louis E. Gray, 40, of Fort Worth, detained pending further court proceedings. Gray has been in custody since July 6 when law enforcement executed a search warrant at his residence.

According to the criminal complaint filed in the case, special agents with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) executed a search warrant at Gray's residence, where he resided alone. ICE HSI located two working computers and 17 hard drives. Preliminary forensic examination of two of those hard drives has shown they contain about 2500 images of child pornography.

A federal complaint is a written statement of the essential facts of the offenses charged, and must be made under oath before a magistrate judge. A defendant is entitled to the presumption of innocence until proven guilty. If convicted of this offense, however, Gray faces a maximum statutory sentence of 10 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and a lifetime of supervised release. The U.S. Attorney's office has 30 days to present the matter to a grand jury for indictment.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Alex C. Lewis is in charge of the prosecution.

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.