WASHINGTON - A 57-year-old Warren, Indiana man, David L. Franklin, has pled guilty to interstate transportation of child pornography and possession of child pornography, U.S. Attorney Jeffrey A. Taylor, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Joseph Persichini, Jr., Washington Field Office, and Metropolitan Police Department Chief Cathy L. Lanier announced today.

Franklin entered his guilty plea today in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia before U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay. Franklin faces a mandatory minimum sentence of five years of imprisonment and a maximum sentence of 20 years of imprisonment for interstate transportation of child pornography. The defendant faces a maximum sentence of 10 years of imprisonment for possession of child pornography. Franklin, who is subject to enhanced penalties because the images of child pornography that he transported involved either a prepubescent minor or a minor who had not attained the age of 12 years, is expected to fall within an advisory sentencing guidelines range of 135 to 168 months of imprisonment when he is sentenced by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan on May 13, 2009.

Franklin admitted during Friday's plea proceeding that between August 21, 2008, and August 29, 2008, he communicated on-line, via computer, with an individual who, unbeknownst to Franklin at the time, was a detective with the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia ("MPD"), working undercover within the District of Columbia. During that same period, Franklin transmitted to the MPD detective, via the Internet, six videos and four still images depicting the sexual abuse, by adult males, of children -- all of whom appeared to be under the age of 10 (and some of whom appeared to be under the age of two).

On September 4, 2008, the MPD detective, along with FBI agents, executed a search warrant at the home of Franklin in Warren, Indiana. On that date, law enforcement officers seized from Franklin's home, among other things, an Acer Aspire laptop. Subsequent forensic analysis of that laptop revealed six videos and four still images depicting the sexual abuse of children by adult males -- each of which previously had been transmitted to the MPD detective by Franklin. Forensic analysis of the laptop also indicates that Franklin transmitted and possessed a total of at least 454 images of child pornography.

This case was brought as part of Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative to combat the growing epidemic of child sexual exploitation and abuse launched in May 2006 by the Department of Justice. Led by U.S. Attorneys' Offices and the Criminal Division's Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section (CEOS), 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 to identify and rescue victims. For more information about Project Safe Childhood, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov.

In announcing the guilty plea, U.S. Attorney Taylor, FBI Assistant Director in Charge Persichini, and MPD Chief Lanier commended the work of Washington Metropolitan Police Detective Timothy Palchak, who conducted the undercover investigation, and FBI Special Agent Scott Schelble of the Washington Field Office, both of whom are members of the Innocent Images Task Force of the FBI. They also commended the work of John Marsh, Criminal Investigator with the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia, who conducted the forensic analysis of Franklin's computer. Lastly, they praised the work of Assistant U.S. Attorney Lovita Morris King of the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Indiana for her assistance with the search, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Renata Kendrick Cooper, who investigated and is prosecuting the case.