A man from Fort Worth in Texas has been sentenced to 30-years in a federal prison after he moved to Mexico, married a woman and molested her daughter.
The Dallas Morning News reported on how Ronald Douglass Sweatt admitted to one charge of producing child pornography in May.
The report said he returned to Texas from Mexico in June 2015. Investigators found he had brought back a disk drive containing videos and obscene images recorded in Mexico.
The Dallas Morning News report stated a detective from Fort Worth police downloaded some of the images and tracked them to an IP address used by Sweatt, according to court documents.
His house in Haslet was raided at the end of last year and the external drive containing obscene images was recovered by police.
The drive contained some images of Sweatt having sex with a young girl, the report stated.
He subsequently admitted downloading child porn when he lived in Mexico. The report stated he will not be released from a federal prison until he’s 77-years-old due to the lack of parole in the federal prison system.
Child phonography offenses are dealt with very seriously in the federal courts. Federal investigators have many sophisticated techniques to track down and recover this kind of material.
While many people make the mistake of believing that deleting a file on a computer, will destroy it permanently, this is not the case. The investigators can often recover this kind of material.
The federal penalties for the possession of child pornography are very harsh. Offenders often have numerous images that can be incredibly incriminating.
The United States Sentencing Guidelines state the penalty for a first time offender can be 12-20 years of imprisonment. The sentencing guidelines for possession of child pornography obtained via file-sharing are often more strict than the penalties provided for people who physically abuse children.
If you have been charged with a crime of this nature there’s a lot of stigma as well as a harsh federal penalty. You should hire a Dallas criminal defense lawyer who has handled many of these cases and is familiar with the current technology. See our resources about child pornography crimes here.
