Palatka Man Found Guilty Of Receiving And Possessing Child Pornography

Jacksonville, Florida – Acting United States Attorney A. Lee Bentley, III announced that a federal jury in Jacksonville today has found Travis Rocky Dixon (35, Palatka) guilty of receiving and possessing videos of child pornography using the Internet.  Dixon faces a minimum of 5 years, up to 20 years in prison on each of the two receipt charges and a maximum of 10 years in prison on the possession charge.  After the return of the jury’s verdict, Dixon was remanded to the custody of the United States Marshals Service. A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for February 24, 2014.

Travis was indicted on March 28, 2012.

According to testimony and evidence introduced during the trial, during 2011, two different law enforcement officers downloaded videos depicting child pornography over the Internet from a host computer using Internet Protocol (IP) addresses that resolved back to Dixon’s residence located at 2011 Locust Avenue in Palatka.  On January 18, 2012, a federal search warrant was executed at this residence.  FBI Forensic examiners entered the residence and discovered that Dixon’s computer was, at that time, actively downloading video files with titles indicative of child pornography.  During an interview, Dixon told agents, among other things, that he was the primary user of the computer, that he used a file sharing program to download video files of young girls, and that he had been looking at child pornography for about one year.  Dixon also stated that on the morning of January 18, 2012, he got on the file sharing program and “just started looking around.”  He stated that one thing led to another and he started downloading. 

A subsequent forensic analysis of Dixon’s computer revealed that it contained at least 64 videos depicting children engaged in sexually explicit conduct and that at least two videos of child pornography were downloaded on the morning of January 18, 2012.     

This case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Daytona Beach, Miami and Jacksonville, the Clewiston (Florida) Police Department, and the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.  It is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney D. Rodney Brown.

It is another 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."