Defendant Sentenced to 960 Months for Child Pornography

John Stuart Dowell, 47, of Santa Cruz, Calif., was sentenced late yesterday in Harrisonburg, Va., to serve 960 months in prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for producing child pornography.

The sentence was announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman and U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Virginia Timothy J. Heaphy.

Dowell was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Michael Urbanski in the Western District of Virginia.

In October 2012, Dowell pleaded guilty to 12 counts of using a minor to engage in sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing visual depictions of that conduct and one count of transportation of child pornography.

According to a statement of facts entered into the record by the government and agreed to by the defendant, Dowell admitted that in late 2010 and early 2011 he was staying at a residence in Frederick County, Va. While staying at the home, Dowell repeatedly sexually abused a 3-year-old girl and filmed the abuse. A computer forensic examination further revealed that Dowell, in separate incidents, produced two videos of a 5-year-old female engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

The investigation of the case was conducted by the Northern Virginia-District of Columbia Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, with assistance from the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the San Jose, Calif., Police Department, as well as Danish law enforcement officers and Interpol.

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. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ offices and the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, 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.

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