North Texas registered sex offender pleads guilty to child pornography offense

DALLAS - A man from Campbell, Texas, pleaded guilty on Wednesday to one count of possession of child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney James T. Jacks of the Northern District of Texas (NDTX).

Donald Means, 63, has been in custody since his arrest in November 2009 on a related federal criminal complaint. He is a registered sex offender from his 2002 conviction in the Eastern District of Texas on one count each of possessing and receiving child pornography. He was sentenced to serve 54 months in prison, but was released from prison in April 2007. At the time of his current offense, Means was on supervised release for those convictions.

According to the plea agreement, if the Court accepts the terms, the parties agree that the appropriate term of imprisonment is 12 years in prison. Means is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge Jorge A. Solis on March 2.

According to documents filed in the case, on Oct. 20, 2009, the Hunt County Sheriff's Department, in conjunction with police officers from surrounding cities, was conducting compliance checks of the registered sex offenders residing in their county. At about 8:30 p.m., law enforcement from the following law enforcement agencies arrived at Means' Campbell residence: Hunt County Sheriff's Office, Greenville Police Department, Hunt County Constable's Office and the Commerce Police Department. Means signed a consent form allowing officers inside the house to conduct the compliance check.

Officers observed a desktop computer in Means' bedroom and obtained consent from Means to search it. They found concerning images on his computer, and based on the nature of those images, seized his computer for further examination.

The following day, a forensic agent with the U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Office of Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) examined Means' computer and found about 40 composite ("cut and paste" or "morphed") image files depicting images of prepubescent females engaged in sexually explicit conduct. Means admitted that he had created the composite images on his computer and stated that the source of the nude adult male images was a computer disk containing adult pornography.

He admitted that the images of the prepubescent females in the image files came from pictures of minor females he found in art magazines and/or other advertisements.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Lisa J. Miller, Northern District of Texas, is prosecuting this case.

This investigation is part of Operation Predator, a nationwide ICE initiative to protect children from sexual predators, including those who travel overseas for sex with minors, Internet child pornographers, criminal alien sex offenders, and child sex traffickers.

ICE encourages the public to report suspected child predators and any suspicious activity through its toll-free hotline at 1-866-DHS-2ICE. This hotline is staffed around the clock by investigators.

Suspected child sexual exploitation or missing children may be reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, an Operation Predator partner, at 1-800-843-5678 or http://www.cybertipline.com.