LONDON, KY (Friday, April 26, 2024) – A Lily, Ky., man, James Samuel Jones, 39, was sentenced on Thursday, by U.S. District Judge Robert Wier, to 20 years in prison, for the distribution of child pornography.
According to his plea agreement, on September 13, 2022, Jones, through his Yahoo email account, distributed a video depicting two minor victims engaged in sexual activity. The video was sent to an email account believed to have child pornography and sent with the expectation of receiving child pornography in return for the distributed video.
Under federal law, Jones must serve 85 percent of his prison sentence. Upon his release from prison, he will be under the supervision of the U.S. Probation Office for 20 years.
Carlton S. Shier, IV, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Kentucky; Robert Holman, Special Agent in Charge, U.S. Secret Service; and Russell Coleman, Kentucky Attorney General, jointly announced the sentence.
The investigation was conducted by U.S. Secret Service and Kentucky Attorney General’s Office. Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Parman is prosecuting the case on behalf of the United States.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office prosecuted this case as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by U.S. 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.
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