Washington, D.C. – Seth Gulley, 29, of Greenfield, Indiana, has pled guilty to Transportation of Child Pornography and Possessing Material Constituting Child Pornography, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor announced today.

Gulley entered his guilty plea today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before the Honorable Richard W. Roberts. The defendant faces a statutory mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years in prison and a maximum sentence of 20 years for Transportation of Child Pornography, and a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison (with no mandatory minimum) for Possessing Material Constituting Child Pornography. If the Court accepts the parties’ plea agreement under Rule 11(c)(1)(C) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, the Court will agree to sentence the defendant to a period of incarceration of 108 months. The sentencing hearing is scheduled for January 29, 2009.

According to the Statement of Offense filed with the Court by the government, on October 12, 2007, a detective with the Metropolitan Police Department who was working in an undercover capacity in the District of Columbia and posing as an adult pedophile, registered to gain access to and subsequently monitored a known child pornography site named Kido Network. On October 31, 2007, the detective utilized a covert screen name and posted a message in the public access forum in the Kido Network for anyone in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia or the District of Columbia who was active and wanted to chat to contact the covert screen name on Yahoo! instant messaging.

On November 15, 2007, the detective was contacted by an individual who utilized the screen name “wolfhall_yng1" who initiated a conversation by instant messaging. During that conversation your affiant was informed by “wolfhall_yng1" that he was chatting with another pedophile in Yahoo! who was utilizing the screen name “daddee_luvs_yng_girls.” That same day, the detective, utilizing a covert screen name, initiated contact in Yahoo! instant message with the defendant who utilized the screen name “daddee_luvs_yng_girls,” also known as “Seth.”

The defendant described himself as a 28-year-old white male residing in Indiana. During the course of communications between the detective and the defendant between November 15, 2007 and May 22, 2008, the defendant sent the detective by photo share approximately fourteen (14) files containing images depicting children who appear to be under the age of 12 engaged in suggestive posing and in sexual acts with adults.

In conversations with the detective, the defendant said that he lived with his father. The defendant routinely displayed a color photograph of himself in his profile box during the course of these communications with the detective. At all times that the defendant communicated on-line with the defendant, the detective was at a location within the District of Columbia. Subsequent investigation determined that the defendant resided with his father in Greenfield, Indiana.

On June 3, 2008, the defendant was arrested in Greenfield, Indiana, pursuant to a warrant for his arrest that was issued by U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge Alan Kay on May 22, 2008. On June 2, 2008, a U.S. District Court Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of Indiana issued a search warrant authorizing the search of the defendant’s residence. The warrant was executed by Metropolitan Police Department Detectives and Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Among the items recovered during the search of the defendant’s home was a HP Pavillion Computer. A forensic analysis of that computer was conducted by a Criminal Investigator with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia. On the computer were 303 images of child pornography, including the 14 images of child pornography that the defendant had sent to the detective, and 8 video-sequenced movies/images of child pornography. The images located on the defendant’s computer have been taken to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), where they will be compared with NCMEC’s Child Recognition & Identification System (CRIS).

In announcing the guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Taylor commended the outstanding investigative work of Metropolitan Police Detective Timothy Palchak and Special Agent Scott Schelbe of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, who are members of the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, and Criminal Investigator John Marsh of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the forensic computer analysis he conducted. He also praised the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Karla-Dee Clark, who investigated, and is prosecuting, the case.