Sexually Exploiting a Minor

Harford County Man Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison for Sexually Exploiting a Minor to Produce Child Pornography Defendant Had Young Children Pose in Sexually Explicit Pictures Taken at His Residence to Replicate Pornographic Images He Received Over the Internet


April 20, 2010 - BALTIMORE—U.S. District Judge Catherine C. Blake sentenced George Kenneth Hayward, age 72, of Kingsville, Maryland, today to 20 years in prison followed by supervised release for life for sexually exploiting a minor to produce child pornography. Judge Blake also ordered that Hayward forfeit his residence and the computers seized at the time of his arrest.

The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein; Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; Bel Air Police Chief Leo Matrangola; Harford County Sheriff L. Jesse Bane; and Sergeant Dave Betz of the Harford County Sheriff’s Office, Director of the Harford County Child Advocacy Center.

According to Hayward’s plea agreement, in November 2008, a 5-year-old girl was interviewed at the Harford County Child Advocacy Center. The girl reported that Hayward had sexual contact with her on a number of occasions when she was in Hayward’s care. A search warrant was executed at his residence on Monica Circle in Kingsville and computers and other items were seized. Images of the 5-year-old girl in sexually explicit poses were discovered, along with images of a series of minor children in various stages of dress, taken in and outside Hayward’s residence. Numerous sexually explicit images were taken of the vaginal and anal areas of many of the minor children. A number of other child pornography images from Hayward’s computer that he received over the Internet were known images of child pornography as documented by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Review of the images Hayward produced revealed that he had the children he photographed replicate the sexually explicit images shown on the child pornography he received over the Internet.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by United States Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov. Details about Maryland’s program are available at http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorneys Bonnie S. Greenberg and Tamera Fine, who prosecuted the case.