Anthony Gabriel Ortiz, Child Pornography Distribution, Georgia 2024

A former US Navy petty officer has been sentenced to federal prison after admitting to distributing images of child sexual exploitation in Georgia.

Anthony Gabriel Ortiz, 23, of Kings Bay, Georgia, was sentenced to 74 months in prison after pleading guilty to Distribution of Child Pornography, said David H. Estes, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Georgia.

U.S. District Court Judge Lisa Godbey Wood also ordered Ortiz to pay $19,000 in restitution, to register as a sex offender, and to serve 15 years of supervised release after completion of his prison sentence.

“Distributing child pornography shares the pain of victimization endlessly for innocent children who have been exploited,” said U.S. Attorney Estes. “Anthony Ortiz is being held accountable for perpetuating the harm to these vulnerable victims.”

Ortiz was in the U.S. Navy assigned to the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command, Naval Weapons Station in Charleston, S.C., when investigators with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in early 2019 found online images of child pornography shared via a messaging application.

RCMP alerted the Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Cyber Crimes Center, and HSI contacted the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). Ortiz, a petty officer third class, transferred in April 2019 to Submarine Base Kings Bay in Kingsland, Ga., where he later was interviewed by HSI and NCIS investigators.

He was taken into custody after admitting to possessing and distributing child pornography over the internet, and investigators found hundreds of images and videos of child sexual exploitation on electronic devices in his possession.

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