HOUSTON – In a shocking case, a former kindergarten teacher from Texas has been ordered to spend the next 30 years behind bars for his role in producing and possessing child pornography, announced United States Attorney Kenneth Magidson.
Stephen Wayne Sudduth, 38, of Sealy, entered a guilty plea on September 3, 2013, to two counts of production of child pornography. Sudduth’s sentence was handed down by U.S. District Judge Nancy Atlas.
The charges against Sudduth arose from an international investigation led by members of the Houston office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), the office of the Caribbean Attaché for Homeland Security, the Texas Attorney General’s Cybercrime Unit, the Public Prosecutor’s Office in Curacao, a special task force unit in Curacao comprised of Dutch and local law enforcement officers, and the equivalent of the juvenile sex crimes unit of the Curacao Police Corps.
During the course of the investigation, HSI agents and a forensic child interviewer traveled to Curacao in December 2009 and May 2010 to identify and interview the children depicted in the images. Sudduth was found to have produced and possessed child pornography, including images of young girls taken with a digital camera in a classroom.
Sudduth’s sentence includes 360 months for each of the two convictions, to be served concurrently. He will also have to pay restitution to the two victims and serve 25 years of supervised release following completion of his prison term. During this time, he will be required to participate in counseling, have no contact with minors under the age of 18, and limited access to computers and the internet. He will also be required to register as a sex offender.
This case was brought 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. Led by the United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.
For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab ‘resources.’
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