Agents Seized Computers from the Defendant on Three Successive Occasions in 2004 and 2005, Each Containing Numerous Images of Child Pornography
SAN FRANCISCO – LAWFUEL – The US Legal Newswire – United States Attorney Scott N. Schools announced that Timothy Jacob Ockenfels was sentenced Tuesday, October 30, 2007 to ten years in prison for trafficking child pornography. This sentence is the result of an investigation by the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Ockenfels pleaded guilty on February 12, 2007 to multiple counts related to the transportation, receipt, and possession of child pornography over the Internet.
The ten-year sentence is the latest development in a case that began in October 2004 after ICE agents received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children linking Ockenfels’s America Online email account to the distribution of child pornography.
According to a criminal complaint, ICE agents interviewed Ockenfels at his Belmont home in November 2004, at which time he denied any involvement with child pornography, but agreed to allow investigators to search his computer. A subsequent forensic analysis of that computer turned up numerous images and movies of child pornography, including depictions of rape and sadomasochistic behavior involving both prepubescent girls and boys.
The criminal complaint further details that approximately one week later, ICE agents returned to the defendant’s home to execute a search warrant. While there, agents found and seized a second computer from Ockenfels containing numerous images of child pornography including explicit sexual acts between adults and prepubescent boys and girls.
When agents returned to the defendant’s home in January 2005 with an arrest warrant, they observed yet another computer in Ockenfels’s possession. ICE agents obtained a search warrant for the third computer and again recovered numerous images and movies depicting child pornography associated with Ockenfels’s America Online email account, including an approximately eighteen minute video depicting a prepubescent female engaged in numerous sex acts with an adult male.
According to the criminal complaint, agents also seized “buddy lists” from Ockenfels’s home containing more than 100 screen names.
Ockenfels, 35, of Belmont, California, was indicted by a federal grand jury on February 2, 2005. He was ultimately charged with six counts of sending child pornography over the Internet, three counts of receiving child pornography over the Internet, and one count of possessing child pornography on his three computers and in his America Online account.
The sentence requires Ockenfels to serve ten years in prison, after which he will be required to register as a sex offender and to spend the rest of his life on supervised release. Among other conditions of his supervised release, Ockenfels may not access the Internet without permission and, if granted permission, must keep a daily log of all Internet addresses he accesses that are not directly related to any authorized employment he maintains.
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Susan Illston following a guilty plea to six counts of transporting child pornography in violation of Title 18, United States Code, § 2252(a)(1), three counts of receiving child pornography in violation of § 2252(a)(2), and one count of possessing child pornography in violation of § 2252(a)(4)(B). Judge Illston also ordered the defendant to pay $1,000 in special assessments. The defendant was immediately remanded into custody upon pronouncement of his sentence.
Assistant United States Attorney Robert David Rees of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California and Darcy Katzin, Trial Attorney with the Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section of the United States Department of Justice are prosecuting the case with the assistance of Ana Guerra, Lilian Arauzhaase, Nancy Dick, Kathy Huynh, Miche Sharpe, Nai Saelee, Sheryl Castillo, and Karem Alvarez. The prosecution is a result of a three month investigation by ICE Special Agents Sean Sherrouse and Nanette Shorten.
