Louisville Man Pleads Guilty To Producing Child Pornography

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – A Louisville man pled guilty to violating federal child exploitation laws today, announced David J. Hale, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.

Craig Ian Elliott, age 47, pled guilty to a single charge of producing child pornography. Senior United States District Court Judge Charles R. Simpson, III, accepted the guilty plea.

According to the written Plea Agreement filed in open court, on April 2, 2010, the defendant was living at a residence on Algonquin Parkway in Jefferson County, Kentucky, with his girlfriend. On that date, his girlfriend was at work, but her 17-year-old daughter was at home with Elliott after she finished school for the day. Elliott used his girlfriend’s cell phone - a Boostmobile Sanyo Mirro Model SCP 3810 - to take sexually explicit photos of the girl. The cell phone was manufactured outside the Commonwealth of Kentucky. The metadata from the images showed that the pictures were taken at approximately 4:08 P.M.

After Elliott took the photos of the girl, he used the cell phone to transmit the images, via the Internet, to his Yahoo! account. There is no evidence that he distributed the images to anyone else. Elliott faces a statutory mandatory minimum term of imprisonment of 15 years and a maximum sentence of 30 years. He faces at least five years of Supervised Release and could be placed on Supervised Release for the remainder of his life. Judge Simpson scheduled a sentencing hearing for October 21, 2014, at 2:30 p.m.

Assistant United States Attorney Jo E. Lawless prosecuted the case. The Louisville Metro Police Department Crimes Against Children Unit conducted the investigation.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006 by the Department of Justice to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse. Led by the United States Attorneys' Offices, 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.justice.gov/psc. For more information about internet safety education, please visit www.justice.gov/psc and click on the "Resources" tab.