Alaskan Physician Sentenced to 20 Years for Receiving and Distributing Child Pornography

An Alaskan physician was sentenced to 20 years in prison and a lifetime term of supervised release for receiving and distributing child pornography, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Karen. L. Loeffler of the District of Alaska.

Dr. Greg Alan Salard, 54, of Wrangell, Alaska, was found guilty on July 28, 2015, after a six-day trial before Chief U.S. District Judge Timothy M. Burgess of the District of Alaska, who also sentenced Salard late yesterday and ordered him to pay a $25,000 fine.

According to evidence presented at trial, between June and October 2014, an Internet Protocol address linked to Salard was used to share known child sexual exploitation files and a laptop computer seized from Salard’s home contained peer to peer software that was used to share one of the images identified during the investigation.  A forensic examination of the laptop uncovered evidence of hundreds of child sexual exploitation files, that multiple searches had been run on the laptop for a term associated with child sexual exploitation and that child sexual exploitation videos had been viewed on the computer.  The evidence also revealed that a program designed to erase or “wipe” computer files had been used multiple times, including on the morning the search warrant was executed.

The FBI investigated the case, with assistance from the U.S. Forest Service; the Petersburg, Alaska, Police Department; the Wrangell Police Department; and the Juneau, Alaska, Police Department.  Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Reardon of the District of Alaska and Trial Attorney Leslie Williams Fisher of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS) prosecuted the case.