David Lee Frater, Child Pornography, Arizona 2014

A 63-year-old Mesa man has been sentenced to over 10 years in prison for his part in a child pornography ring.

David Lee Frater, who had previously been convicted of possession of child pornography and annoying or molesting a child under 18, was sentenced to 125 months in prison followed by a lifetime term of supervised release.

The investigation into Frater’s activities began in 2014 when a detective in New Zealand encountered a user on a popular file-sharing software who was distributing images of child pornography.

Through this investigation, it was revealed that Frater had been advertising child pornography under alternate online personas and was in possession of over 28,000 images and 713 videos of child pornography.

Some of the images depicted prepubescent minors and sadistic or masochistic conduct.

Fraters’s 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 government.

U.S. District Judge David G. Campbell described child pornography as a ‘scourge of society’ that preys on helpless victims and stated that trafficking the materials ‘fuels the fire that is consuming many children.’

The investigation in this case was conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigations, assisted by the New Zealand Customs Service and other law enforcement agencies in New Zealand.

The prosecution was handled by Rachel Reames Stoddard, Assistant U.S. Attorney, District of Arizona, Phoenix.

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