Jacksonville Man Sentenced To 20 Years In Federal Prison For Producing Child Pornography

Jacksonville, Florida – United States District Judge Timothy J. Corrigan sentenced James Daniel Kasper (29, Jacksonville) to 20 years in federal prison for using a child to produce child pornography. Kasper was also ordered to serve a 20-year term of supervised release, following his incarceration, and to register as a sex offender. Kasper has been held in the custody of the United States Marshals Service since his arrest on March 20, 2013, in Jacksonville.

According to court documents, in February 2013, law enforcement officers in Tennessee arrested a registered sex offender on child pornography charges. Further investigation revealed that several hundred emails had been exchanged between this individual and others, many of which contained attached images and videos depicting child pornography.  Investigators determined that one of the email accounts belonged to James Daniel Kasper and that Kasper had uploaded images of child pornography over the Internet and sent them to others by email, via a website whose server is outside of the United States.

On March 20, 2013, FBI agents and other law enforcement officers executed a federal search warrant at Kasper's apartment located on Sunbeam Road, in Jacksonville.  During this search, agents seized a laptop computer and a thumb drive. Meanwhile, two agents contacted Kasper at his place of employment in Jacksonville.  When interviewed, Kasper stated, among things, that while babysitting a 9 year-old child, he used his smart phone to produce sexually explicit photos of the minor child.  After taking the photos of the child, Kasper uploaded the images over the Internet, onto a particular website and sent them to others via email.  Kasper also stated that he used a peer-to-peer file sharing program to search for child pornography on the Internet.

The thumb drive seized at Kasper’s residence contained at least 49 images of child pornography that were produced by him. Evidence from Kasper’s email accounts were introduced during the sentencing hearing. The evidence showed that Kasper had traded images of child pornography, which he produced, over the Internet.  In one particular email, Kasper stated that two of the pornographic images that he produced of the victim child were “just a sample of my own work.”

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, and the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office.  It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

It is another case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse.  Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state, and local resources to locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who sexually exploit children, and to identify and rescue victims.  For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.usdoj.gov/psc and click on the tab "resources."