Central Iowa Man Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison For Child Pornography Offense

DES MOINES, IA – Harold “Hal” Holmstrom, 76, of Minburn, Iowa, was sentenced on federal child pornography charges on July 23, 2014, to the maximum of 10 years in jail, and a lifetime of supervised release thereafter.

In determining the sentence, U.S. District Court Judge John A. Jarvey of the Southern District of Iowa took into account the fact that Holmstrom had sexually abused five female members of his family decades ago when they were small children, which had gone unreported and therefore unaddressed prior to the federal prosecution. Judge Jarvey described the victim impact statements as among the “most difficult” he has read during his tenure on the bench.

Holmstrom was caught using a computer program to download child pornography from the Internet by U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations special agents in 2012. According to HSI, Holmstrom was one of the top ten most active collectors of child pornography on this particular computer program in all of Iowa between 2010 and 2012.

Holmstrom told case agents he had deleted all traces of child pornography from his computer before it was taken from him by law enforcement authorities in August, 2012, but HSI’s computer forensic team was able to recover evidence that he downloaded over 4,800 images of child pornography. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children reported 1,286 images were of known victims from 69 different child pornography series. Images involved children under 12, bestiality, and violence.

Any persons having knowledge of a child being sexually abused are encouraged to call the Iowa Sexual Abuse Hotline at 1-800-284-7821.

The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Homeland Security Investigations, and was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Iowa.

(Download Press Release )