California Man Convicted of Producing
and Possessing Child Pornography

WASHINGTON – Edward Lee Sullivan, of Oakland, Calif., was convicted on Feb. 25, 2011, of one count of producing and one count of possessing child pornography, announced U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag of the Northern District of California and Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division.

Sullivan, 38, was found guilty by U.S. District Court Judge D. Lowell Jensen of the Northern District of California after a bench trial.

Evidence presented at trial showed that during a two-week period in March 2008, Sullivan trained a 14 year-old girl to work for him as a child prostitute. During the course of those two weeks, Sullivan produced numerous photographs and videos of the minor, which documented the steps Sullivan took to prepare the 14 year-old to work as a prostitute. According to trial evidence, Sullivan filmed at least one pornographic video of the minor, which depicted Sullivan instructing the minor as she performed oral sex on him. Evidence at trial established that Sullivan uploaded at least one photograph to the Internet as part of a sexually explicit posting on an adult dating website.

Sullivan is scheduled to be sentenced on June 10, 2011, and faces a maximum sentence of up to life in prison and a fine of $250,000.

The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Andrew S. Huang and Maureen C. Bessette of the Northern District of California and Trial Attorney Alecia Riewerts Wolak of the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS). The investigation was conducted by the FBI, the Berkeley Police Department and the Oakland Police Department.