William Lucas Ferguson, Child Pornography, Kentucky 2022

An Ashland man was sentenced to 45 years in prison for producing child pornography.

According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, William Lucas Ferguson, 28, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge David Bunning to 45 years in prison for two counts of producing child pornography.

According to his plea agreement, in June 2022, law enforcement was alerted that Ferguson had sexually explicit images and videos of a minor victim on his phone. Law enforcement interviewed Ferguson and, during a consensual search of his phone, located multiple images of Ferguson sexually assaulting a minor child.

Ferguson admitted that he was the adult in the images and that he had produced the sexually explicit images of the minor victim, on multiple occasions.

Under federal law, Ferguson must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. Upon his release from prison, he will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for 20 years.

The investigation was conducted by the FBI, Kentucky State Police, and the Ashland Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Erin Roth is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.

The U.S. Attorney's Office prosecuted this case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/usao-edky/pr/greenup-county-man-sentenced-45-years-production-child-pornography