BAKERSFIELD, Calif. -- United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced the local efforts being made in support of the Department of Justice’s recently released National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction. The National Strategy submitted to Congress last week features the first-ever comprehensive threat assessment of the dangers facing children from child pornography, online enticement, child sex tourism, and commercial sexual exploitation, and it outlines a blueprint to strengthen the fight against these crimes. In announcing the strategy, Attorney General Holder described it as “taking our fight against child exploitation and sexual abuse to the next level.”

The overarching goal of the National Strategy is to combat child exploitation by increasing collaboration and cooperation among federal, state, local, and tribal law enforcement partners, as well as non-law enforcement partners. New facets of the enforcement strategy include the United States Marshals Service’s launch of a nationwide program targeting the top 500 most-dangerous, noncompliant sex offenders in the country. The Department also will create a national database to allow federal, state, tribal, local, and international law enforcement partners to deconflict their cases with each other, engage in undercover operations from a portal facilitated by the database, and to share information and intelligence on dangerous offenders as well as future threats and trends. The National Strategy reinforces the Department’s commitment to the Project Safe Childhood (PSC) initiative that was launched in 2006.

Since Fiscal Year 2006, the Department of Justice has filed 8,464 PSC cases against 8,637 offenders. Prosecutors in the Eastern District of California have helped lead the fight in this area and have filed more than 360 such cases in the last five years. For three years in a row, the Eastern District of California led the nation in the number of child exploitation indictments.

Since January 2010, the Fresno Division of the Eastern District of California has obtained indictments or informations against 23 defendants with charges ranging from receipt, distribution, and possession of child pornography, travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, and production and attempted production of child pornography. During that same time, 24 defendants have been sentenced, or had sentences affirmed, for offenses including production, receipt, distribution, and/or possession of child pornography, failing to register as a sex offender, coercing a minor to engage in illicit sexual conduct, traveling with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct with a minor, transmitting obscene material to a minor, and/or producing obscene visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

Activity in the Fresno office for the month of August thus far includes charges of receipt and possession of child pornography being filed on August 4, against Ronald Lunsford, 57, of Kern County, and Neal Swayne, 59, of Tulare County. In addition, on August 3, Alan Cortney Smith, 43, of Stanislaus County, was sentenced to a federal prison term of 97 months followed by 180 months of supervised release.

A complete list of cases charged and sentenced is attached and includes the following:

* Raymond Ronell: a sentence of 30 years was upheld by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit for production and trafficking in child pornography. Court records reveal that the defendant, then 43, befriended a 12-year-old female in Fresno. He took sexually explicit pictures of her and trafficked in thousands of other images of child pornography

* Ephraim Aguirre II: received a 30-year sentence for trafficking in child pornography. Court records reveal that in addition to receiving and distributing thousands of images of children being sexually abused, the defendant, then 28, engaged in extremely graphic chats that included statements of his desire to molest minor females. The defendant had been a teacher at elementary, middle, and high schools in Fresno and claimed to have molested girls ages four and 12.

* Danny Teague: from Bakersfield, received and possessed images of child pornography and produced obscene images of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct. He was sentenced to 19 years and two months in prison.

* Bradly Nelson: the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed a sentence that included 12 years and seven months in prison for receipt of child pornography. Nelson, 48 at the time of sentencing, had been a longtime Little League coach in Sanger. Four and a half years of the federal sentence will be served concurrently with a 22-year state prison term. The state prison term was imposed for the defendant’s California state court convictions for lewd acts with a minor, and the federal sentence was imposed for receipt of child pornography.

* James Eric Scheidt: at age 46, Scheidt was sentenced to 27 years in prison for receipt of child pornography. He had been convicted for lewd acts with a minor in state court in California, and he also served a parole violation term for unauthorized use of a computer.

* James Vincent Thorson: 46, of Fresno, was an amateur photographer sentenced to 15 years and eight months to be followed by a lifetime term of supervised release for producing obscene visual depictions of minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct as well as receipt of child pornography.

* Melvin Kirkbride: age 63, of Manteca, was sentenced to 15 years in prison to be followed by a lifetime term of supervised release for receipt of child pornography. Previously he served a prison sentence in Washington state for molesting six minor males.

“Children are the most helpless members of society,” U.S. Attorney Wagner said. “We, therefore, have the highest obligation to protect them from becoming victims of sexual exploitation.”

Executive Assistant United States Attorney Laurel White serves as the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s coordinator for Project Safe Childhood. The office recently hired a new prosecutor who is dedicated solely to prosecuting PSC cases. Assistant U.S. Attorneys David L. Gappa and Brian Enos are the PSC prosecutors for the Fresno Division of the office.

Numerous agencies have helped investigate and prosecute these cases including the following: District Attorney’s Offices in Fresno, Kings, and Tulare Counties; Federal Bureau of Investigation offices in Stockton, Modesto, Fresno, and Bakersfield; ICE Homeland Security Investigations offices in Fresno and Bakersfield; the United States Marshals Service; the Naval Criminal Investigative Services, the United States Postal Inspection Service offices in San Francisco and San Diego; Police Departments in Bakersfield, Clovis, Fresno, Visalia; and Sheriff’s Offices in Fresno, Kern, Kings, Merced, and Tulare Counties.

United States Attorney Wagner noted that a number of studies indicate a strong correlation between child pornography offenses and contact sex offenses against children. The National Juvenile Online Victimization (NJOV) study revealed contact offenses in one of every six cases that began as a child pornography investigation with no prior knowledge by law enforcement of possible contact offenses by the target. While no study can quantify the risk that any given child pornography offender poses for future contact offenses against children, the significant correlation between child pornography offenses and contact offenses signals that the risk is present. Sadly, many cases summarized above, corroborate the results of this study.

Part of the Department’s new strategy is to educate the public, particularly parents and children, about the dangers that can be associated with the Internet. Prosecutors and law enforcement partners in the Fresno Division have for several years engaged in outreach and education efforts in schools, parent-teacher organizations, civic groups, and other forums. Partners with the Fresno Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, from January through early August 2010 have addressed thousands of students, teachers, and parents at all grade levels. This work will continue. Resources about internet safety can be found at the following sites: www.ProjectSafeChildhood.gov and at www.NetSmartz.org as well as by visiting the links on the Eastern District of California’s PSC site at: www.justice.gov/usao/cae/psc/index.html as well as www.fresnoicac.org.

Information Provided By The US Department Of Justice