Louisville Man Sentenced To 15 Years In Prison For Producing Child Pornography

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Senior United States District Court Judge Charles R. Simpson III, sentenced Craig Ian Elliott, age 47, to 15 years in prison followed by 20 years of Supervised Release for violating federal child pornography laws, namely, the production of child pornography, announced David J. Hale, United States Attorney for the Western District of Kentucky.

According to a written Plea Agreement previously 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.

Assistant United States Attorney Jo E. Lawless prosecuted the case. The Louisville Metro Police Department’s Crimes Against Children Unit, in conjunction with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, conducted the investigation as part of Kentucky’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force.

This 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."