Concluding a case launched by law enforcement officials in Germany, a Roseville man was sentenced today to more than 10 years in prison for receipt of child pornography.
U.S. District Judge John A. Mendez sentenced Thomas Lee Neal, 42, to 10 years and three months in prison, to be followed by 10 years of supervised release for receipt and possession of child pornography, according to a federal Department of Justice news release. Neal pleased guilty to the charges March 1.
According to court documents, in May 2009, German law enforcement officials identified Neal as an individual who had uploaded to a file-sharing website in Roseville a video of child pornography. When U.S. agents executed a search warrant on Neal's house, they seized computers that contained images of child pornography.
In announcing the sentence, Judge Mendez said the seriousness of Neal's conduct, his failure to seek treatment for his attraction to child pornography and his failure to abide by the conditions of his pretrial release supported the 10-year sentence, according to the news release.
The case resulted from an investigation by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Homeland Security Investigations and the German Federal Police, Child Pornography Unit. Assistant U.S. Attorney Laurel White prosecuted the case.
The prosecution is part of the Department of Justice's Project Safe Childhood initiative, which aims to increase federal prosecutions of sexual predators of children and to reduce the number of Internet crimes against children, including child pornography trafficking.
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