West Texas man sentenced to nearly 34 years on child pornography convictions

LUBBOCK, Texas - A man from Big Spring, Texas, who pleaded guilty in December 2010 to producing and receiving child pornography, was sentenced on Friday to 33 years and nine months in federal prison.

This 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), the Big Spring Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety.

In addition, U.S. District Judge Sam R. Cummings ordered that John Alan Conroy, 37, who has been in custody since his July 2010 arrest on a related charge, serve a lifetime of supervised release following his imprisonment.

According to documents filed in the case, in 2009, Conroy lived with a woman and her two young children, Jane and John Doe, in Big Spring. Jane and John Doe turned 8 years old and 10 years old that year, respectively. Conroy was unemployed part of that year. The mother of the two children worked during the day, and Conroy often was left in charge of Jane Doe.

Conroy purchased a laptop computer around 2007, and beginning some time in 2007 or 2008, he started using it to search the Internet for sexually explicit images and videos of children. He downloaded and collected numerous images and videos depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct, and stored the images on his computer and on various forms of storage media.

During 2009, when Jane Doe was 7 years old, Conroy began showing to her various images and videos depicting minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Beginning in October 2009, Conroy began engaging in sexual contact with Jane Doe. Then, on Dec. 27, 2009, Conroy used his Canon digital camera to produce sexually explicit videos of Jane Doe. The videos were produced in a residence in Big Spring.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Steven M. Sucsy of the U.S. Attorney's Office in Lubbock, 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. Since Operation Predator was launched in July 2003, ICE agents have arrested more than 12,000 individuals.

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.