James Leland Copeland, Receiving Child Pornography, Texas 2013

Victimless crime is a myth, and the internet has only made it worse. In a shocking case that highlights the dangers of online child exploitation, Hallettsville resident James Leland Copeland, 42, has been sentenced to a significant term of federal imprisonment for receiving child pornography.

Copeland, a wanted person from Tennessee for failure to register as a sex offender, pleaded guilty on May 10, 2013. U.S. District Judge Gregg Costa, who accepted the guilty plea, sentenced Copeland to the 28-year-term, taking into consideration the need to protect the public and deter future criminal behavior in the defendant and others.

The sentence also includes a lifetime of supervised release following completion of the prison term. In handing down the sentence, Judge Costa noted Copeland’s recidivism and substantially greater role in the offense than the average child pornography recipient. Judge Costa determined that Copeland, while not directly producing the child pornography he received himself, he nonetheless played a significant role in causing it to be produced.

Copeland will also be required to register as a sex offender. The U.S. Marshals Service (USMS) determined Copeland was living in Hallettsville and had failed to register within the state of Texas.

According to court documents, authorities searched Copeland’s residence on Dec. 18, 2012, at which time several electronic storage devices and other written media were seized from the home. The Corpus Christi Police Department’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (CCPD-ICAC) conducted a forensic examination of the electronic storage devices which led to the discovery of several images of child pornography.

Some of that correspondence was with a person calling herself “Ms. Majesty,” later identified as Desiree Lee Padilla, of Brownsville. The communications between the two were primarily sexual in nature and discussed their mutual sexual attraction to children. Padilla sent several pictures of child pornography wherein she sexually assaulted an infant female relative.

Padilla was prosecuted by state authorities for aggravated sexual assault of a child and subsequently sentenced to 25 years imprisonment on Sept. 11, 2013.

Copeland will remain in custody pending transfer to a U.S. Bureau of Prisons facility to be determined in the near future. The case was investigated by HSI, CCPS-ICAC, with the assistance of USMS. Assistant United States Attorney Lance Duke prosecuted the case 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.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-sdtx/pr/hallettsville-man-gets-28-years-receiving-child-pornography-0