 |
United States Attorney’s Office ALEXANDRIA NEWPORT NEWS NORFOLK RICHMOND UNITED STATES ATTORNEY CHUCK ROSENBERG |
|
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Jim Rybicki
|
September 25, 2007 |
|
North Carolina Man Pleads Guilty to Distribution of Child Pornography
(Alexandria, VA) – Jeffrey Scott Turman, age 42, of Mooresville, North Carolina, pled guilty today to distributing online child pornography to a person he believed to be a 12-year-old girl located in Fairfax, Virginia. United States Attorney Chuck Rosenberg made the announcement following Turman’s guilty plea before United States District Judge Claude M. Hilton.
Turman, who will be sentenced on November 30, 2007, faces a mandatory minimum prison sentence of five years and a maximum sentence of twenty years. Turman also faces at least five years, to life, of supervised release following his prison sentence. In addition, Turman will be required to register as a sex offender in any jurisdiction in which he lives, works or goes to school.
According to court documents, between April and May 2007, Turman engaged in a number of sexually explicit instant message conversations with a person whom he believed to be a 12-year-old girl located in Fairfax, Virginia. In fact, Turman was communicating with an undercover FBI agent. During the course of these online conversations, Turman distributed 19 images of hardcore child pornography to the fictitious child, in an effort to entice her to perform sexual acts and to transmit sexually explicit images of herself to him, via the Internet. Turman also discussed traveling to Virginia to meet the child for illicit sexual conduct.
This investigation was conducted by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and Charlotte Field Office. This case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant United States Attorney Edward J. McAndrew, who is on detail from the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice.