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Kenneth L. Wainstein PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE |
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Washington, D.C. - A 34-year-old District of Columbia man, Bruce A. Schiffer, has been sentenced to 25 years in prison for the high tech advertising and distribution of more than 10,000 images of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein and Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher of the Criminal Division announced today.
Schiffer was sentenced today by the Honorable Paul L. Friedman in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for the internet child pornography offenses. On October 14, 2005, Schiffer pleaded guilty to four counts, including advertising, transporting, receiving and possessing child pornography. In addition to 25 years in prison, upon his release Schiffer will be required to abide by strict conditions of no computer use except in the context of authorized employment, no possession of pornographic images, and supervision by a probation officer for life.
According to the government’s investigation, Schiffer spent months in the Fall of 2004 through early 2005 operating a computer file server that spread the most vile forms of child pornography over the internet. He even published on the internet an advertisement aimed at young boys to get them to photograph themselves or other boys, so he could obtain more sexually explicit images that he could collect and then disseminate. By operating his personal computer as a file server, Schiffer allowed selected files to be downloaded and uploaded by the public from and to his computer respectively, with him checking each one and cataloguing it. He labelled subfiles with titles such as “bondage” and “baby.” The depravity of the images knew no depths. Some of the photos depicted infants and children undergoing torture of a sexual nature. Schiffer advertised his site on an internet relay channel, making available to the public a collection of approximately 11,000 image and movie files of child pornography.
The authorities detected Schiffer through online surveillance and subsequently executed a search warrant on his residence in Washington, D.C. At Schiffer’s home, the FBI seized several computers and a disturbing array of other evidence. Among the items seized from Schiffer’s bedroom were a large quantity of storage media including videotapes, CDs, DVDs and floppy disks, a clown suit, and two boxes of catalogued correspondence between Schiffer and over 100 prison inmates, the vast majority of whom had either sexually assaulted or murdered children. In the letters, Schiffer discussed his desire sexually to abuse children. Schiffer had printed out a list of local youth shelters and directions from his workplace to one shelter for boys.
In imposing sentence, Judge Friedman stated that “by advertising and exchanging these images, the defendant was expanding the market for child pornography, and that market is made up of kids who are being exploited, and thus it is damaging to the whole community of children.”
In announcing today's sentence, U.S. Attorney Wainstein and Assistant Attorney General Fisher commended the outstanding investigative work of the High-Tech Investigative Unit of the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (“CEOS”) of the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice, the Pennsylvania State POlice, FBI Special Agents Audrey McNeil and Ashton Koo, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michelle Morgan-Kelly (formerly of CEOS) and Jeanne M. Hauch, who prosecuted the case.