FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
THURSDAY, JULY 13, 2006
WWW.USDOJ.GOV

CRM
(202) 514-2008
TDD (202) 514-1888

Maryland man pleads guilty to transferring child pornography via the internet

Washington, D.C. - A Leonardtown, Maryland man, Robert M. Cromwell, has pleaded guilty to transferring child pornography via the internet, United States Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein announced today.

Cromwell, 47, pleaded guilty earlier today in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia before the Honorable Rosemary M. Collyer to the charge of Transporting or Shipping Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of Minors and Possessing Material Constituting or Containing Child Pornography. Cromwell is subject to a mandatory minimum term of five years of imprisonment and a guideline range of 108 to 135 months when he is sentenced on October 17, 2006.

The defendant admitted during today's plea proceeding that between February and May 2005, while he was living in Leonardtown, Maryland, he engaged in several conversations with an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation working in an undercover capacity while the two were logged into a member-created internet chat room that discussed sex with children between the ages of 2 and 12 years old. During those conversations, the defendant, on four occasions, transferred to the undercover officer videos and images that depicted young girls engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

In September 2005, during a search of the defendant's Maryland residence, FBI agents recovered a computer whose hard drive stored well over 600 images and movie files of child pornography. The children depicted in these pornographic images ranged in age from infants to teenagers. An analysis of the images transferred by the defendant and recovered from his computer was conducted by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and revealed that at least 91 images were of identified child victims of sexual exploitation.

In announcing the guilty plea, United States Attorney Wainstein commended the work of Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agents Steven Forrest of the Buffalo Field Office, who conducted the undercover investigation, and Ashton Koo of the Washington Field Office, who spearheaded the local investigation. He also thanked the FBI's Baltimore Field Office and the St. Mary's County Sheriff's Office for their assistance with the search and arrest. Finally, he commended Assistant United States Attorneys Steven Dunne and Donna Sanger of the U.S. Attorney's Office in the District of Maryland for their assistance with the search and with the Rule 20 transfer of the Maryland charge, and Assistant United States Attorney Angela Schmidt, who prosecuted the case.