News Releases and Statements

Alfredo Roberto Townsend pleaded guilty to this charge on Feb. 23. He has been in custody since his arrest May 3, 2011.

A former teacher at the Bayamon Military Academy in Puerto Rico was sentenced to 15 years in prison in district court Tuesday for production of child pornography, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Brian Keith Netzer of Hagerstown, Md., was sentenced to 135 months in prison for child pornography possession following an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Maryland State Police.

Randolph Grote, a former officer with the Cincinnati Police Department (CPD) accused of possessing child pornography, was charged Wednesday in federal court. The charges resulted from an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and CPD.

John Foster, 36, formerly of Maineville, Ohio, was sentenced in federal court Thursday to 210 months for charges related to the possession of child pornography. Sixty months will be served concurrent with his state sentence.

Christopher Garcia, 33, of Clovis, N.M., a former sergeant with the U.S. Air Force, is charged with possessing child pornography. He is temporarily detained pending an arraignment and detention hearing scheduled for Monday.

ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) special agents along with the New Jersey State Police and the N.J. Division of Criminal Justice arrested Aaron N. Debarardnis of Cape May, N.J., who used a file sharing network to distribute images and videos of child pornography.

Jonathan Lee Evans, 32, was sentenced to 122 months in prison July 25 by U.S. District Judge Ron Clark. Evans pleaded guilty Feb. 1 to the child pornography charges.

Jason Daniel Gandy, 35, was ordered July 25 to remain in custody pending further criminal proceedings by U.S. Magistrate Judge George C. Hanks Jr.

A Fort Bliss, Texas, man was sentenced to life in prison Friday for producing and distributing child pornography, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Nathan Paul Severson of Rochester, Minn., pleaded guilty in federal court Tuesday to distributing child pornography. He admitted that he possessed about 11,600 still images and 430 videos of child pornography, The plea resulted from an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Scott Smallwood, a Prince George's County, Md. school bus driver who used his cell phone to document his sexual abuse of a child, was sentenced to 55 years in prison for producing child pornography, following an investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Smallwood kept ledgers with personal information of more than 400 children.

Curt Scholz was sentenced Tuesday to 152 months in prison for possession of child pornography after an investigation conducted by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).Scholz acknowledged that among the more than 150 images of child pornography he possessed were images depicting minors engaging in sexually explicit conduct with other minors.

Donald Cunningham, 47, of Urbana, was arrested July 16 by HSI special agents. A federal grand jury returned an indictment last week, but it remained sealed pending Cunningham's arrest and court appearance.

Mario Laguna-Guerrero pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to engage in the sex trafficking of a minor. Laguna-Guerrero began recruiting "Jane Doe," who has an IQ of 58, to perform commercial sex acts in exchange for money in Hillsborough County sometime in 2008.

Lance Howard Mayes has been indicted on federal charges for receiving child pornography, following a probe by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Clove Police Department.

Christopher Daves made his initial appearance in federal court Thursday on an indictment charging him with possessing child pornography in a case being investigated by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

Albert Silva Hernandez Jr., 43, of Las Vegas, is charged in an indictment returned by a federal grand jury July 10, with eight counts of sexual exploitation of a child and three counts of transporting child pornography. The indictment alleges the defendant exchanged sexually explicit text messages and photographs with a minor girl.

Michael Gavel III, 38, of Baltimore, was sentenced July 11 by U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg to seven years in prison, followed by lifetime supervised release, for distributing child pornography.

They were engaged in a bitter custody dispute, and the father was afraid that the mother of his children was going to take them out of the country. His suspicions were confirmed when he found reservations - one-way tickets to Jordan - for his wife and their two children.

Douglas Allen Brown was sentenced to 78 months in federal prison Tuesday for possessing child pornography, following an undercover investigation by ICE's Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). Brown and co-defendant Michael Bruce Hays possessed more than 16,000 illicit photos and over 300 videos.

A former middle school teacher, Todd Evans, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal charge of receiving and distributing child pornography, following an investigation by ICE's HSI.

Robert Jay Hudson II, 25, of Gambrills, Md., pleaded guilty Tuesday to possessing child pornography, following an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Baltimore, the Anne Arundel County Police Department and the Maryland State Police.

The arrest of Armando Suazo-Vazquez stemmed from a referral by the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office in Florida stating that Suazo-Vazquez was using an Internet service provider to share child pornography through peer-to-peer networks.