Fairfax Man Sentenced to 40 Months for Possession of Child Pornography

(Alexandria, Virginia) - Timothy Cooke, age 36, of Fairfax, Virginia, was sentenced today to 40 months in federal prison for possession of child pornography. Chuck Rosenberg, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia; Colonel David M. Rohrer, Chief of Police, Fairfax County Police Department; and, Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington Field Office, made the announcement following Cooke's sentencing before United States District Judge Gerald Bruce Lee.

Cooke pled guilty to the charge on July 1, 2008. Upon his release from incarceration, Cooke will remain under Court supervision for a term of 5 years. Cooke also will be required to register as a sex offender in any U.S. jurisdiction in which he lives, works or attends school.

According to court documents and proceedings, on August 21 and 31, 2007, Cooke accessed images of child pornography via the Yahoo Flickr website. It was later determined that Cooke had been accessing the website while at work and saved some of the images of child pornography on his computer hard drive in a folder labeled "internal audit." During an interview with law enforcement in December of 2007, Cooke stated that he had been accessing the Yahoo Flickr website from his work computer since approximately September of 2006. Prior to that, he engaged in the same actions on the Yahoo Photos website, which was a predecessor to Yahoo Flickr.

This investigation is being conducted by Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Fairfax County Police Department. This case is being prosecuted by Special Assistant United States Attorney Andrew McCormack, who is on detail from the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the Department of Justice.

A copy of this press release may be found on the website of the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/vae.

Related court documents and information may be found on the website of the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at http://www.vaed.uscourts.gov or on http://pacer.uspci.uscourts.gov.

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