Texas soldier pleads guilty to federal child pornography charges

EL PASO, Texas — A 22-year-old U.S. Army soldier faces 20 years in federal prison after pleading guilty Oct. 12 to child pornography charges. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) investigated the case.

Vincent Lawrence Gregory pleaded guilty to receiving, distributing and possessing child pornography.

ICE HSI special agents executed a federal search warrant on June 16 at a barracks facility on Fort Bliss, Texas. Authorities located two laptop computers. One of the laptops found in the defendant's room contained images of minors being sexually exploited, as well as an assortment of computer-related media.

Gregory pleaded guilty to the charges in federal court during an Oct. 14 hearing. During this hearing, he admitted that between November 2008 and January 2011, he used peer-to-peer file-sharing programs "Limewire" and "Frostwire" to download images and videos of child pornography to his computers. A computer forensics examination of the seized materials revealed 84 videos and 42 images depicting minors being sexually exploited.

Gregory remains in federal custody pending sentencing, which is set for Jan. 4 before U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone.

This investigation, conducted by ICE HSI El Paso Cyber Crimes Group, is part of ICE's Operation Predator. Operation Predator is an 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 by calling 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or completing its online tip form.