District Man Pleads Guilty to Distribution of Child Pornography

Search of Defendant’s Residence Yields Hundreds of Images of Child Pornography

WASHINGTON—Richard Evans, 25, of Washington, D.C., has pled guilty to a federal charge of distributing child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Ronald C. Machen, Jr.; James W. McJunkin, Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office; and Cathy L. Lanier, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD).

Evans entered the guilty plea on March 28, 2012 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The Honorable Gladys Kessler is to sentence him on June 21, 2012. Evans faces a maximum of 20 years of imprisonment, with a mandatory minimum of five years. He also faces a potential fine of up to $250,000.

According to a factual proffer of evidence presented during the court proceedings, on November 15, 2011, Evans contacted an undercover agent with the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force on a social network site. Over the next two weeks, the defendant engaged in multiple online conversations with the undercover officer, during which he expressed an interest in meeting an underaged girl and engaging in sexual contact with her. Evans also sent the undercover officer multiple images of child pornography and acknowledged that he actively traded child pornography with other individuals online. In the course of the online communications, Evans further expressed interest in watching the undercover performing sexual acts with the underaged girl via webcamera over the Internet and in having the undercover send him a video of the underaged girl engaged in sexual acts.

Law enforcement obtained an arrest warrant for Evans and a search warrant for his residence in Washington, D.C. On November 30, 2011, Evans was arrested. A forensic analysis of computer equipment inside Evans’s residence confirmed that he possessed approximately 560 images and 102 videos of child pornography, which were organized into various subfolders according to the category of sexual genre, fetish, and/or sexual acts.

This case was brought as part of the Department of Justice’s Project Safe Childhood initiative and investigated by the FBI’s Child Exploitation Task Force, which includes members of the FBI’s Washington Field Office and MPD. In February 2006, the Attorney General created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, 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 identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

In announcing the guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Machen, Assistant Director in Charge McJunkin, and Chief Lanier praised the MPD Detectives and Special Agents of the FBI Child Exploitation Task Force. They also commended Assistant U.S. Attorney David Last, who is prosecuting the case.