Kissimmee man sentenced to 5 years in federal pen for possession of kiddie porn

Perp's computer downloads showed 100,000 images & videos

Alexander Lee, 31, of Kissimmee, sentenced to 5 years in federal prison for kiddie porn / Headline SurferPhoto for Headline Surfer / At left is the jail mug for Alexander Lee, who the long arm of the law caught up with after he downloaded images of child porn using a 'peer-to-peer' sharing program. Now he'll he sharing space in a federal jail cell.

ORLANDO -- Senior U.S. District Judge John Antoon has sentenced a 31-year-old Kissimmee man to five years in federal prison for receipt of child pornography, that included more than 100,000 still images and videos. Lee also was ordered to register as a sex offender and to serve a 10-year term of supervision, upon his release from prison.

The sentencing hearing Thursday was a follow-up to Alexander Lee's June 26, 2012, guilty plea before Antoon.

According to the evidence presented at the sentencing hearing, Lee used a "peer-to-peer program" to download child pornography.

On Oct. 9, 2012, special agents with Homeland Security Investigations, along with agents from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, executed a federal search warrant at Lee’s apartment.

A forensic review of Lee’s computer revealed that he downloaded 1,047 images of child pornography on Feb. 19, 2012.

Further forensic review revealed that Lee downloaded more than 100,000 images and videos of child pornography.

“Receiving child pornography is not a victimless crime. It haunts the children depicted in it, who live daily with the knowledge that countless strangers use an image of their worst experiences for their own gratification,” said Susan McCormick, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations Tampa, which oversees the agency’s Orlando office that conducted this investigation.

“It is our duty as special agents to find and arrest these child predators and ensure they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

“Receiving child pornography is not a victimless crime. It haunts the children depicted in it, who live daily with the knowledge that countless strangers use an image of their worst experiences for their own gratification,” said Susan McCormick, special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations Tampa, which oversees the agency’s Orlando office that conducted this investigation. “It is our duty as special agents to find and arrest these child predators and ensure they are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

This case was investigated by U.S. Immigration and Custom’s Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Shawn P. Napier.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006, by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.

For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

FAST FACTS: Peer-to-Peer Porn Investigations

Unquestionably, the Internet today provides new and unprecedented opportunities for sex offenders to meet and share explicit images and predation methods. Peer-to-peer (P2P) networks are one way these individuals share child pornography and other explicit materials.
P2P networks allow collectors of child pornography to download and trade movies, images, and pornographic text with others in the network. In effect, individuals in these networks maintain "libraries" of images for others to share. Until recently, P2P technology made it difficult for law enforcement to investigate these crimes. However, the development of new software now provides investigators powerful tools to identify the movement of pornography in P2P networks.
One such software tool allows law enforcement officials to identify and locate computers that trade or download child pornography—and the tool identifies and locates these computers geographically by IP address. Using this software, investigators have been able to identify over a half-million individual computers worldwide that have been involved in the exchange of child pornography.
-- Source: Justice Search
 

Did You Know?

In 2001, there were around 70,000 adult websites. In 2013, there are more than 4.2 million pornographic websites in the US alone. At any second of the day, worldwide, 30 million unique visitors are viewing porn.
-- Source: brobible.com