Source: United States Department of Justice News
WASHINGTON – Michael Otis-Currie, 27, of Adelanto, California, was sentenced today in U.S. District Court to 121 months in prison and 10 years of supervised release for accessing and viewing child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves, FBI Special Agent in Charge Wayne A. Jacobs, of the Washington Field Office’s Criminal and Cyber Division, and Acting Chief Pamela Smith, of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).
Otis-Currie pleaded guilty on September 11, 2022. According to court documents, on October 1, 2020, an undercover law enforcement officer (“UC”) entered the “you.ngshare” KIK group, a group that was designed for members to discuss the sexual abuse of children, and to trade child pornography. The UC continued to monitor activity in the group over the next several days. Between October 1, 2020 and November 17, 2020, approximately 400 users joined the “you.ngshare” group. On October 18, 2020, a user later identified as the defendant posted a link to the group that contained approximately 2,250 image and video files depicting the sexual abuse of children. Many of these videos depicted the rape and physical torture of several young children. The folder shared by the defendant also contained a subfolder entitled “Incest,” which contained approximately 250 additional videos and images depicting child erotica and child pornography.
Otis-Currie was previously convicted in California in 2019 of possession or control of child pornography and was on supervised probation when he committed the instant offense. A law enforcement search of the defendant’s phone revealed additional saved video and image files depicting the sexual abuse of children. The defendant admitted that he was a member of different online groups in which child pornography was discussed and shared.
This case was brought as part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative and investigated by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes members of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and MPD. In February 2006, the Attorney General created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, 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 identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
This investigation also received valuable assistance from Los Angeles Field Office – Victorville Resident Agency. It was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Janani Iyengar and Assistant U.S. Attorney Rachel Forman, of the Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.