| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE April 28, 2009 WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/CAN |
SAN FRANCISCO – Jeremy Esperante was sentenced last week to 14 years in prison for distributing child pornography, United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello announced.
Esperante pleaded guilty on Dec. 3, 2008, to distributing, receiving and possessing child pornography. According to the defendant’s admission at his change of plea hearing, he used Limewire, a peer-to-peer file sharing software program, to distribute child pornography over the Internet.
Esperante, 35, of San Francisco and Vallejo, Calif., was indicted by a federal grand jury on July 1, 2008. He was charged with distributing, receiving and possessing child pornography.
“It’s everyone’s responsibility to protect our nation’s youth from the harm this activity inflicts on them. Russoniello said. “This sentence demonstrates the Justice Department’s commitment to tracking down and prosecuting individuals who distribute and possess images and videos of child pornography. My office will continue to prosecute to the full extent of the law those responsible for this cruel abuse of children.”
“This sentence underscores the severity of even considering committing sexual crimes against children,” said Ray Greenlee, deputy special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Office of Investigations in San Francisco. “Some who traffic in child pornography falsely believe that the anonymity of cyberspace shields them from scrutiny, but in fact, the Internet has given us new tools in our enforcement efforts to protect children. ICE will continue to aggressively investigate these types of cases and bring child predators to justice.”
The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton on April 22. Judge Hamilton also imposed a 20 year period of supervised release. The defendant has begun serving his sentence.
Tarek J. Helou is the Assistant U.S. Attorney who is prosecuting the case with the assistance of Hui Chen and Elizabeth Garcia. The prosecution is the result of an investigation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Further Information:
Case #: CR 08-431 PJH
A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s website at www.usdoj.gov/usao/can.
Electronic court filings and further procedural and docket information are available at https://ecf.cand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl.
Judges’ calendars with schedules for upcoming court hearings can be viewed on the court’s website at www.cand.uscourts.gov.
All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be directed to Jack Gillund at (415) 436-6599 or by email at Jack.Gillund@usdoj.gov.
This site does not contain all press releases or court filings and is not an official record of proceedings. Please contact the Clerk of Courts for the United States District Court for official copies of documents and public information.