Millersville Man Pleads Guilty to Possessing Child Pornography

May 19, 2010 - BALTIMORE, MD—Nathan Sayre, age 22, of Millersville, Maryland, pleaded guilty today to possessing thousands of pictures and numerous videos of child pornography obtained from the Internet.

The guilty plea was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Special Agent in Charge Richard A. McFeely of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

According to Sayre’s plea agreement, during a 2008 investigation, investigators learned that a Virginia resident exchanged e-mails and child pornography with an e-mail account assigned to Sayre’s residence. A search warrant for the residence was obtained and computers were seized. Sayre admitted that he had loaded different applications on his computer that allowed him to exchange files with other Internet users; that for a number of years he had accessed websites to obtain child pornography; and that he had acquired child pornography through file sharing programs from other Internet users. Sayre estimated that he saved thousands of individual files and numerous videos containing illegal pornographic images, including images of young boys between the ages of 8 and 13.

Sayre faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison followed by supervised release up to life. Sayre is not detained and U.S. District Judge Benson E. Legg has scheduled sentencing for September 17, 2010, at 3:00 p.m.

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.justice.gov/usao/md/Safe-Childhood/index.html.

United States Attorney Rod J. Rosenstein thanked Assistant U.S. Attorney P. Michael Cunningham, who is prosecuting the case.