Source: United States Department of Justice News
CONCORD – A Philadelphia man was sentenced in federal court for distributing and aiding and abetting the transportation of child sexual abuse material, U.S Attorney Jane E. Young announces.
Michael Wilcox, 33, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Laplante to 90 months in prison and 5 years of supervised release. Wilcox was also ordered to pay $8,000 in restitution.
“Today’s sentence sends a strong message to those who exploit the most vulnerable members of our community that they will be prosecuted, and upon conviction, they will be sentenced to lengthy periods of incarceration,” United States Attorney Jane E. Young said. “We will work tirelessly to expose the perpetrators of these heinous crimes and bring them to justice.”
Wilcox engaged in sexually explicit online chats with a law enforcement officer on various social media platforms. During those chats, Wilcox offered to sell child sexual abuse material to the undercover officer in exchange for payment via CashApp. Wilcox sent various images and videos of child sexual abuse material to the undercover officer as “samples” of material that he had available for sale. He later sent links to online cloud storage folders that contained hundreds of additional images, many of them depicting child sexual abuse material.
Homeland Security Investigations led the investigation. Valuable assistance was provided by the Nashua Police Department. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kasey Weiland prosecuted the case.
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 by the Department of Justice. Led by the U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the DOJ’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit https://www.justice.gov/psc.
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