An Alabama man was sentenced Wednesday to 90 years in prison and 10 years of supervised release for production of child pornography involving seven minor victims, announced Acting Assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Blanco of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jay E. Town of the Northern District of Alabama.
Gregory Jerome Lee, 54, formerly of Cullman County, Alabama, pleaded guilty in January 2017 to four counts of production of child pornography.
U.S. District Judge Virginia Emerson Hopkins presided over the sentencing in Birmingham, Alabama.
According to court documents, beginning in September 1996 and continuing for over a decade, until August of 2007, Lee and his co-conspirators belonged to a group of sophisticated offenders who gathered in secret, password-protected, chat rooms to discuss their sexual interest in minors and the real-life sexual abuse of children being perpetrated by several group members.
Lee and others also used these chat rooms to advertise, distribute, receive, and possess child pornography.
Court documents state that from September of 1996 through December of 2004, Lee sexually abused at least seven different minors and that he frequently produced images and videos depicting his sexual exploitation of these children which he shared with his co-conspirators.
Trial Attorney Ralph Paradiso of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and Assistant U.S. Attorney Daniel Fortune of the Northern District of Alabama prosecuted the case.
This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse, launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice.
Led by U.S. Attorneys’ offices and CEOS, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
(Make it hard for predators to hide; download the Operation Predator app today from iTunes or Google Play. Courtesy of ICE and YouTube)
Additionally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Operation Predator, is an international initiative to protect children from sexual predators.
Since the launch of Operation Predator in 2003, HSI has arrested more than 16,000 individuals for crimes against children, including the production and distribution of online child pornography, traveling overseas for sex with minors, and sex trafficking of children.
In fiscal year 2016, more than 2,600 child predators were arrested by HSI special agents under this initiative and more than 800 victims identified or rescued.
HSI encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free Tip Line at 1-866-DHS-2-ICE or by completing its online tip form.
Both are staffed around the clock by investigators. From outside the U.S. and Canada, callers should dial 802-872-6199. Hearing impaired users can call TTY 802-872-6196.
Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, via its toll-free 24-hour hotline, 1-800-THE-LOST.
For additional information about wanted suspected child predators, download HSI’s Operation Predator smartphone app or visit the online suspect alerts page.
HSI is a founding member of the Virtual Global Taskforce, an international alliance of law enforcement agencies and private industry sector partners working together to prevent and deter online child sexual abuse.
