Omaha Man Sentenced to 90 Months for Receiving Child Pornography

United States Attorney Deborah R. Gilg announced that Jonathan M. Vidlak, 22, was sentenced in the United States District Court in Omaha, Nebraska for receiving child pornography.  The Honorable John M. Gerrard sentenced Vidlak to ninety (90) months of imprisonment.  There is no parole in the federal system.  After his release from prison Vidlak will begin a 15 year term of supervised release.

A computer used by Vidlak was observed by law enforcement in October and November 2011 to be offering videos of child pornography on a file sharing network.  The videos involved children between the ages of five and ten engaged in sexual acts.

On March 22, 2012, a search warrant was executed at Vidlak’s residence.  During an interview with a Douglas County Sheriff Investigator, Vidlak admitted to downloading child pornography on the internet.  He admitted searching for child pornography two or three times a week and deleting the images.  Although no child pornography was found on the computer, forensic analysis revealed evidence consistent with searching for child pornography.  In addition agents had successfully downloaded a partial video of child pornography from Vidlak’s computer as it was being offered to the public through the file sharing program.

This case was brought as a 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.

This matter was investigated by the Omaha FBI's Cyber Crime Task Force (CCTF), of which the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office, is a partner.  The Omaha CCTF is a multi-jurisdictional task force consisting of eleven federal, state and local law enforcement agencies from Nebraska and Iowa.  The mission of the Omaha CCTF is to investigate and apprehend high technology criminals and to protect our communities by preventing high technology crime and national security threats involving computers and computer networks.  The Omaha CCTF was established on the premise that the capabilities of law enforcement agencies to investigate computer and high technology related crimes are enhanced in a task force setting involving the sharing of resources and expertise.