Omaha Man Receives 6 Years for Child Pornography
United States Attorney Deborah R. Gilg announced that Lawrence Pleiss, 48, of Omaha was sentenced in federal court in Omaha for receiving and distributing child pornography. The Honorable Joseph F. Bataillon sentenced Pleiss to a 6 year term of imprisonment. There is no parole in the federal system. After his release from prison Pleiss will begin a lifetime term of supervised release. Pleiss will also be required to register as a sex offender.
On July 20, 2011, officers of the Nebraska State Patrol and the FBI Cyber Crimes Task Force served a search warrant for child pornography on Pleiss’s Omaha residence. More than sixty videos of child pornography were found on hard drives seized from his home. Approximately 12,000 images of child erotica were also located. The videos of child pornography included prepubescent minors engaged in sexually explicit conduct.
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 United States 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.
