Washington, D.C. – A 53-year-old Virginia man, Steve R. Houck, has been sentenced to serve 15 years in prison following his earlier guilty plea to Transportation of Child Pornography,
U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, Metropolitan Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier, and Joseph Persichini, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI’s Washington Field Office announced today.

Houck was sentenced earlier today by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, who also ordered lifetime supervised release.

According to the evidence presented at the time of the plea, Houck, a computer specialist and former Federal Communications Commission technical analyst, contacted a Metropolitan Police Department Detective, who was acting in an undercover capacity, in an on-line incest chat room on June 12, 2007. When the undercover detective said that he was sexually active with a ten- year-old girl, Houck, using the name “Rick Martin,” expressed interest in meeting the child and engaging in sex with her. He sent over the internet an image of child pornography and asked the undercover detective to provide him with nude photographs of the fictional child, after which he would arrange to meet her. Over the course of the next several weeks Houck and the undercover detective had several on-line conversations.

Investigators determined that several different Internet Protocol addresses were associated with the conversations between “Rick Martin” and the undercover detective and that they were traced back to different individuals, including the occupants of several residences in close proximity to each other in Fairfax, Virginia. Through further investigation, Houck, who lived next door to one of the addresses, was developed as a suspect, and on July 2, 2007, a search warrant was executed at his residence.

Metropolitan Police Department officers and Federal Bureau of Investigation agents seized from Houck’s home computers and other data storage devices thousands of images of child pornography. Houck had previously been convicted of Distribution of Child Pornography in the Eastern District of Virginia and had just completed a term of supervised release when he was arrested in this case. Because he had been convicted previously of Distribution of Child Pornography, Houck was subject to a mandatory minimum term of 180 months, or 15 years of incarceration.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood and the Regional Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force. In February 2006, the Attorney General created Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative designed to protect children from online exploitation and abuse. Led by the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, Project Safe Childhood marshals federal, state and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov/.

In announcing the sentence, U.S. Attorney Taylor, MPD Chief Lanier, and FBI Assistant Director in Charge Persichini noted the outstanding work of the Distirct of Columbia MPD/FBI Child Exploitation Task Force and in particular the outstanding work of Metropolitan Police Detectives Timothy Palchak and Jonathan Andrews, and Sgt. Morani Hines, Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agents Jill Blackman, and Trevor Blackman, and Special Agents Scott Schelbe and Andrew Smallman. They also thanked the Assistant U.S. Attorneys in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Virginia for their assistance in this case. Finally, they commended Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Stewart who prosecuted the case.