britt man charged with producing and possessing child pornography
Contact: Peter Deegan
Sander Cotoc, age 22, from Britt, Iowa, has been charged with one count of producing child pornography and one count of possessing child pornography. The charges are contained in an Indictment filed on December 14, 2010, in United States District Court in Sioux City.
The Indictment alleges that, on April 20, 2010, Cotoc produced and possessed child pornography.
If convicted on both charges, Cotoc faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of 40 years’ imprisonment, $500,000 in fines, $200 in special assessments, and at least 5 years and up to life on supervised release following any imprisonment.
Cotoc appeared on January 27, 2011, in federal court in Sioux City and was held without bond. Cotoc’s next appearance for trial is set for April 4, 2011.
As with any criminal case, a charge is merely an accusation and a defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Mark Tremmel and was investigated by Homeland Security Investigations, the Hancock County Sheriff’s Office, the Britt Police Department, and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation.
This 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 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.
Court file information is available at https://ecf.iand.uscourts.gov/cgi-bin/login.pl. The case file number is 10-3050.
