Springfield, IL-(ENEWSPF)- A St. Louis, Missouri man was sentenced on September 23, 2011, for possession of child pornography (count one) and transportation of child pornography (count two), the United States Attorney for the Southern District of Illinois, Stephen R. Wigginton, announced today. Because Daniel Lee Scalf, 32, was sentenced in federal court in East St. Louis to a term of imprisonment of 235 months on each count, to run concurrently; a lifetime term of supervised release on each count, also to run concurrently; fined $100 on each count, for a total fine of $200; and ordered to pay a special assessment of $200. Scalf has been held without bond since his arraignment on March 7, 2011.
“This is a well-deserved sentence for someone who was victimizing our children,” said United States Attorney Wigginton. “These cases are about real children who suffer a lifetime over how they are portrayed and their images used by criminals like Mr. Scalf,” he noted.
The violation referenced in count one occurred on January 25, 2011, when Scalf was arrested in a Wal-Mart in Collinsville, Illinois, for stealing little girls’ underwear. Because of Scalf’s suspicious behavior regarding the cellular telephone in his possession, officers contacted a detective who is also assigned to the FBI’s Metro East Cyber Crimes and Analysis Task Force. The detective interviewed Scalf who eventually admitted that there might be “inappropriate” images on his telephone. A search warrant was obtained for the cellular phone, and at least two images of child pornography were found in the “my pictures” folder of the telephone. When confronted with the images, Scalf acknowledged that he possessed the two images of child pornography, and stated that he e-mailed himself the images from his old cellular phone to his current cellular telephone.
With respect to count two, Scalf e-mailed himself images of child pornography between his two different Yahoo e-mail accounts via the internet. One of the occasions in which he did so was on or about July 26 or July 27, 2010, while using a public computer in the library at Southwestern Illinois College.
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 United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), 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 to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.
The case was investigated by the Collinsville, Illinois, Police Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Metro East Cyber Crimes and Analysis Task Force. The case was assigned to Assistant United States Attorney Angela Scott.
Source: FBI.GOV
