fort dodge man charged with receiving and possessing child pornography
Contact: Peter Deegan
Michael Owings, age 53, from Fort Dodge, Iowa, has been charged with one count of receiving child pornography and two counts of possessing child pornography. The charges are contained in an Indictment unsealed January 4, 2011, in United States District Court in Sioux City.
The Indictment alleges that, between March 2009 and October 2009, Owings knowingly received and possessed depictions of child pornography.
If convicted on all charges, Owings faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 5 years’ imprisonment and a possible maximum sentence of 40 years’ imprisonment, $750,000 in fines, $300 in special assessments, and at least 5 years and up to life on supervised release following any imprisonment.
Owings appeared on January 4, 2011, in federal court in Sioux City and was held without bond. Owings’ next appearance for a detention hearing is set for January 6, 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.
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 10-3051.
